The amount and the quality of provided information in a police interview can be seen as the lifeblood of a crime investigation where a Therapeutic Jurisprudential approach may act as a facilitating factor.

The aim of the present experimental study was to investigate the causal relationship between the humanitarian respectively the dominant interviewing approach and interview outcome. Interview outcome means the memory performance and psychological well-being. The experiment comprised three phases where 127 subjects between 17 and 70 years old participated. The first phase was an exposure where the subjects acted against each other in pairs in a computer simulation with a scenario symbolizing a crime event. A week after the exposure phase, the subjects were interviewed in a humanitarian or a dominant style symbolizing a police interview after a crime event. Sex month later, the subjects were interviewed again in the same manner, symbolizing the interview in the court proceeding.

Before and after every phase, the participants completed Antonovsky’s sense of coherence questionnaire and Spielberger’s STAI – the state form. The results from the two interview phases will be discussed in terms of interviewing styles, memory performance, that is the amount and quality of provided information, and psychological well-being.