Samenvatting

Last year the article ‘Episodic memory and interviewing witnesses. What do police interviewers know about this topic?’ (Odinot, Boon & Wolters, 2015, TvC, 57(3), 279-299) was published in this journal. The article describes a study that explored the knowledge of police interviewers about episodic memory. The researchers concluded that police interviewers had insufficient knowledge of episodic memory and that this was related to the lack of psychological terms in the manual of the curriculum of police training. In this article we describe the lack of scientific consensus about episodic memory and the consequences of this for doing research with lists with theses about this subject. Differences between interviewing witnesses and suspects will be discussed. We also question whether it is necessary that police interviewers have thorough knowledge of episodic memory. More important is what knowledge does police need when doing interviews and how are these conducted? Some factors have a negative impact on the quality of those interviews, so we end up with some recommendations for improving the quality of interviews in police practice.