Internet Crime Reporting: Evaluation of a Crime Reporting and Investigative Interview System by Comparison with a Non-Interactive Reporting Alternative

This study reports on the evaluation of a crime reporting and investigative interview system, i-recall. i-recall emulates a police officer conducting a cognitive interview (CI). It incorporates CI techniques to enhance witness memory retrieval and leverages natural language processing technology to support understanding of witness narratives. In a controlled user study i-recall was compared to a non-interactive textbox computer system. Sophomore college students acted as witnesses to a videotaped staged crime and reported what they saw using one of the two alternative reporting methods. Results indicate that i-recall outperformed the textbox system significantly in one of two measures, completeness of report. On average i-recall elicited 14 percent of information from witnesses and the textbox system elicited five (5) percent of information, all with 94 percent accuracy. i-recall is a promising Internet reporting alternative. Future work will evaluate i-recall by comparing it to a human expert cognitive interviewer.