JustGroup Develops a Tool to Assess Compliance with the Investigative Interviewing Standard

Investigative Interviewing is a professional mindset and way of working centred on respect for the person, the ability to listen, professionalism, and the pursuit of reliable information without pressure.

Over the past few years, Ukraine has developed a substantial training and expert base for implementing this approach. The next logical step is to understand the extent to which the Investigative Interviewing Standard is already being applied in practice and how the quality of interviews is changing.

This requires a standardised assessment tool that can:

• analyse whether real-life interviews meet methodological standards;
• identify strengths and areas for development;
• inform training programmes, mentoring, and other professional development initiatives;
• track changes in practice at the system level.

Five years ago, the study “Tell Me What Happened or Confess” became the first analytical document in Ukraine to examine interrogation practices. It demonstrated the need for a different approach to obtaining information — one based on dialogue, trust, and the reliability of the information obtained.

The team behind that study later formed the foundation of JustGroup, and the development of Investigative Interviewing became one of our long-term strategic areas of work.

Since then, we have focused on building the training architecture: designing basic and advanced professional development programmes, establishing a national team of trainers and experts, introducing mentoring, and developing professional standards. At the same time, there was a growing need for mechanisms that could show how this knowledge translates into practice and how sustainable the changes really are.

In 2025, with the support of the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG), JustGroup launched the study “Approaches to Assessing the level of Compliance with the Standard for Investigative Interviewing”. We reviewed different international approaches to assessing the quality of Investigative Interviewing, adapted an assessment tool to the Ukrainian context, and piloted it on real interviews conducted by investigators and prosecutors who had previously completed basic Investigative Interviewing training.

“Assessing compliance with the Investigative Interviewing Standard is a natural stage in the development of this standard in Ukraine. For us, assessment is first and foremost a development tool. It helps an investigator, detective, or prosecutor identify their strengths and areas for growth, while also enabling managers to track changes in practice and identify solutions that can make high-quality information gathering a sustainable part of investigations. Through quality assurance mechanisms, we also work with institutional culture, where self-reflection, quality, effectiveness, and continuous professional development become integral parts of the system,” said Vasylyna Yavorska, JustGroup CEO.

How the study was conducted

1. Selection of interviews
Twenty video recordings of real interviews were selected from cases involving corruption and war crimes, offences involving children, and crimes against life and health.

2. Development of the assessment tool
An expert group developed a harmonised assessment tool based on Ukrainian and international experience.

3. Testing and analysis
A team of experienced trainers and Investigative Interviewing experts applied the tool to real interviews, assessed its practicality, and developed analytical findings.

4. Presentation of the results
The first findings were presented in July 2026 at the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG) Conference in Leuven, Belgium.

We sincerely thank the entire team involved in assessing the 20 video recordings — Yurii Bielousov, Viktoriia Livochka, Lesiia Medynska, Vitalii Kabaiev, Oksana Kaidanovych, and Yuliia Usenko; and in preparing the analytical report — Volodymyr Vasylchuk, Inna Vyshnevska, Ivan Dulkai, Viktoriia Rohalska, Taras Semkiv, and Vasylyna Yavorska.

“The report compares leading approaches — Ukrainian research experience, the model used by the Prosecutor General’s Office, and Norway’s KREATIV system — and proposes a solution that combines their strengths while taking the national context into account, including evidentiary admissibility requirements under Article 615 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine and the specific challenges of conducting investigations under martial law. I hope that the proposed tool will become another practical step towards making Investigative Interviewing part of the everyday work of investigators and prosecutors in Ukraine,” said Yurii Bielousov, Deputy Director of the Economic Security Bureau of Ukraine, an ambassador for the development of Investigative Interviewing, and a member of the national expert team since 2017.

Read the study via the link.

In the longer term, the tool can help to:

• improve interviewing practices with witnesses, victims, and suspects;
• integrate assessment into the professional development of investigators, detectives, and prosecutors;
• strengthen a culture of self-reflection and peer-to-peer learning;
• track how Investigative Interviewing becomes embedded in the everyday practice of the criminal justice system.

The Prosecution Service Development Strategy for 2025–2028 also calls for improving the quality of statements obtained from participants in criminal proceedings and introducing a system for assessing them (paragraph 1.5, https://cutt.ly/pyyd0F8Y). The tool we developed may provide a foundation for a solution that prosecution authorities and pre-trial investigation bodies can systematically apply.

The study was implemented by JustGroup in partnership with the Prosecutor General’s Office, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), and the National Police of Ukraine, with the support of the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iIIRG).