NCJ Number
142380
Date Published
1993
Length
354 pages
Annotation
This book presents practical guidelines for interviews and interrogations designed to obtain a confession or evidentiary information from the person being questioned.
Abstract
The chapters are based in the seven-part interview and interrogative process recommended. Part one, preparation and strategy, is based in an understanding of why and how people lie, verbal and physical behavioral symptoms, and reasons for denials by suspects. Part two, interviewing, considers the nonaccusatory interview in a number of ways: fact gathering; cognitive interviewing, a method to enhance witness recollection; and the selective interview, a means to evaluate the truthfulness of a potential witness or suspect. Part three, the establishment of credibility, focuses on the interrogation of a guilty suspect. The interrogator establishes the credibility of the investigation in the suspect's mind, such that the suspect believes that independent evidence apart from a confession is sufficient for a conviction. Part four, the reduction of resistance, involves the use of techniques that reduce a suspect's resistance to confession. This means skillful control of the conversation so that the suspect believes the interrogator is minimizing or rationalizing the crime as appropriate behavior. This reduces resistance to confession. The remaining three parts of the interview and interrogation consist of obtaining the admission, developing of the admission, and the professional close. Subject index