NCJ Number
132312
Journal
Journal of the Forensic Society Volume: 31 Issue: 1 Dated: (January/March 1991) Pages: 21-29
Date Published
1991
Length
9 pages
Annotation
Undisputed handwritten records of 36 police interviews made by 12 different writers were studied in comparison with controlled tests with volunteer subjects to determine speed of writing.
Abstract
The results are expressed in terms of characters per minute (cpm) where a character is taken as an alphabetic character of either upper or lower case or any numerical digit or any other non- punctuating character. All of the handwriting samples studied were in cursive style. In order to obtain reliable counts of the characters and words within texts, the texts were typed into a computer file, and a simple computer program was used to inspect the whole text and produce counts of words, characters, and punctuation marks. The speed of writing for each text was obtained by dividing the total character count by the times recorded. In the undisputed records of interviews, the 6 highest speeds observed fell in the range of 120-155 cpm; whereas in the controlled tests, the highest speeds were in the range of 150-160 cpm. In addition to the speed of writing the texts were examined for indicators of fatigue, legibility, and accuracy. These results provide criteria for evaluating feasibility of records of police interviews with offenders. Legible handwriting average speeds of writing below 150 cpm are attainable, speeds in the range 150-190 cpm are unlikely to be attained, and speeds above 190 cpm cannot be attained. 2 tables, 2 figures, and 5 references (Author abstract modified)