Investigative interviewing provides the criminal justice system with accounts from victims, witnesses, and suspects, with the conduct of police inquiries directly determining the reliability and completeness of gathered information. Throughout much of the 20th century, police frequently relied on accusatory and non-evidence-based interrogation methods that increased the risk of false confessions. A 1992 study by John Baldwin, commissioned by the UK Home Office to evaluate more than 600 interviews in England and Wales, revealed that officers routinely depended on assumption and confirmation-seeking rather than open-minded information gathering. These historic practices compromised the reliability of evidence, altered witness accounts, and occasionally resulted in innocent people making false confessions. As part of a series examining the impact of artificial intelligence across different occupations, the technology is being considered alongside the established scientific consensus that human memory is not a recording.

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