Information Extraction and eGovernment: Crime Reporting and Investigative Interviewing System

Crime statistics from the US Bureau of Justice and the FBI Uniform Crime Report show a gap between reported and unreported crime. For police to effectively prevent and solve crime, they require accurate and complete information about incidents. This article describes the evaluation of a crime reporting and interviewing system that witnesses can use to report crime incidents or suspicious activities anonymously while ensuring the information received is of such quality that police can use it to begin an investigation process. Findings of this evaluation show that the system is capable of producing accurate and complete reports by enhancing witnesses’ memory recall and that its efficacy approximate the efficacy of a human conducting a cognitive interview. The system is introduced as the first computer application of the cognitive interview and proposed as a viable alternative to face-to-face investigative interviews.