Dictionary

soft room en · NOUN

Meanings

1. A room set up in a police station with amenities that make it easier to talk with children, trauma victims, or other vulnerable populations.
   • The Kansas City, Missouri Police Department installed the first soft room in Missouri. 2024 June 25, Amanda Alvarado, “Police department creates ‘soft’ interview room for assault survivors”, in News, WIBW:
   • In deliberate contrast, the soft room was outfitted with overstuffed chairs and painted a deep blue. In addition to improving interviewees’ experiences, Hill said, the physical and psychological comfort of the soft room will help officers obtain more detailed, accurate testimonies from victims. 2015 April 22, Allison Oligschlaeger, “West Valley police open 'soft' interview room for victims of violence”, in Deseret News, →ISSN:
   • Though he possessed no formal training in interviewing children, he had spent five years working with traumatized children and learning through trial and error how to interview them. His boss assigned him to show the Martensville rookie how to interview them too, in the Soft Room at the Saskatoon police station. 1997 November 14, Frann Harris, “The Prosecution”, in Martensville: Truth Or Justice?: The Story of the Martensville Daycare Trials, Dundurn Press, →ISBN, page 37:
   • Last month, with the help of Project Beloved, Missouri’s Kansas City Police Department remodeled a formerly stiff and uninviting room (used for both victims and suspects) into a soft interview room to solely serve victims of sexual assault. Two years ago, another police department in the Kansas City suburb of Belton used a federal grant to create a similar soft room. 2024 July 11, Jaclyn Diaz, “After a tragedy, a mother wants to soften the rooms where police interview victims”, in National, NPR:
   • Glendale District 4 purchased toys and equipment for the "soft room" occupied by children when family violence/tragic events bring them into police headquarters. 1989, “Child Abuse Prevention”, in LACMA Physician, volume 119, number 12, Los Angeles County Medical Association, page 29:

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