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Statutes
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
Chapter Three
A Structured Model for Investigative
Interviewing of Suspects
Jannie van der Sleen
Kinterview, consulting agency on investigative interviewing
When interviewing a suspect the primary objective is to obtain a truthful state-
ment while also ensuring that the suspect does not make a (partly) false con-
fession. Numerous psychological studies have been conducted in recent years
on the factors involved in this process.
Gudjonsson & Petursson (1991) conducted a self - report study in which
suspects were asked about the circumstances that led them to confess. The
study was repeated in Northern Ireland (Gudjonsson & Bownes, 1992 ) and
Iceland (Sigurdsson & Gudjonsson, 1994 ; Gudjonsson & Sigurdsson, 1999 ).
The researchers concluded that in most situations confessions were prompted
by three types of facilitating factors:
• External pressure to confess: By this the researchers mean coercive inter-
viewing techniques used by the police, police behaviour during the inter-
view and the suspect ’ s fear of being incarcerated.
• Internal pressure to confess: This occurs if the suspect feels guilty about
the crime she or he has committed and wishes to relieve the sense of guilt
by confessing to the crime.
• The suspect ’ s perception of proof: Suspects believe that there is no point
in denying their involvement because the police will ultimately be able to
Handbook of Psychology of Investigative Interviewing: Current Developments and Future Directions
Edited by Ray Bull, Tim Valentine and Tom Williamson
© 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
36
Handbook of Psychology of Investigative Interviewing
The researchers involved in both studies found that the main factor (60%)
that led suspects to confess was the strength of their belief in the evidence
against them. It is interesting that this clearly has more to do with the suspect ’ s
perception of the evidence than with the objective evidence the police have
against the suspect.
Another result that emerged from these self - report studies was that offend-
ers ’ views and attitudes about their confession were related to the reasons they
gave for giving it. Confessions that resulted primarily from external pressure
were associated with the greatest amount of dissatisfaction and regret. The
subjects in this group considered in retrospect that they had confessed far too
readily and had not fully appreciated the consequences of their confession.
They subsequently began to have bitter regrets about having made the confes-
sion. In contrast, the stronger the perceived proof and internal pressure to
confess at the time of the police interrogation, the more satisfi ed the offenders
remained about having confessed.
Bull & Milne (2004) reported that Soukara, Bull & Vrij (2002) studied the
changes from denial to confession in real - life police interviews. They found
that such changes were associated with:
• appropriate disclosure of evidence and the emphasizing of contradictions;
• repetitive questioning and the challenging of the suspect
’ s account;
and
• the interviewer demonstrating concern.
An information
- gathering approach involves asking open questions and
then pursuing a line of questioning based on the answers, while an accusatory
approach involves levelling an accusation right from the start of the interview
( ‘ You took the wallet, didn ’ t you? ’ ). Vrij, Mann & Fisher (2006) found that
information - gathering interviews were cognitively more challenging for the
interviewees (i.e., had a higher cognitive load). Furthermore, information -
gathering interviews also prompted more verbal and nonverbal cues to deceit
(Vrij, 2006 ; Vrij, Mann & Fisher, 2006 ).
In light of his research, Vrij
(2004) suggests several ways of increasing
cognitive load during an interview. He recommends asking follow - up ques-
tions to get suspects to elaborate on what they said earlier. The follow - up
questions are likely to go beyond the story that the suspect has prepared.
Suspects who are lying will know that refusing to answer these questions is
not (or is no longer) an option. Vrij also recommends asking time - related
questions. If a suspect is using a script during the interview (which means that
they are describing an incident that actually happened but not at the time they
say it did, in which case the time of the incident is the only thing the suspect
is lying about), questions that relate to the time of the incident increase the
suspect ’ s cognitive load. Vrij also recommends getting the suspect to repeat
what they said earlier and to describe what happened in reverse order, or
combining these two options and getting the suspect to repeat what they said
A Structured Model for Investigative Interviewing of Suspects
37
earlier in reverse order. Vrij recommends that the interviewer can also instruct
the suspect to maintain eye contact. A fi nal recommendation involves the so -
called strategic use of evidence (SUE), which means that the evidence against
the suspect is not disclosed until a later stage in the interview. The interviewers
ask information - gathering questions based on the evidence before disclosing
the evidence to the suspect. A study of SUE by Hartwig, Granhag, Str ö mwall
& Kronkvist (2006) compared interviews conducted by police offi cers trained
in SUE techniques with interviews conducted by offi cers who were not trained
in the techniques. The researchers found that suspects who were lying made
statements that were more inconsistent with the evidence when interviewed
by offi cers trained in SUE techniques. As a result, more of the SUE - trained
interviewers (85.4%) were able to detect deceit than untrained interviewers
(56.1%). A subsequent study (Hartwig, Granhag & Str ö mwall, 2007 ) revealed
that SUE makes it easier to identify a guilty suspect without the suspect real-
izing that this is the case. It also makes it easier to identify innocent suspects,
but in this case the innocent suspect is aware that the interviewer perceives
him or her as innocent. The researchers believe that this is helpful in the
interview process. Gaining further evidence that a suspect is guilty can be
important in obtaining a truthful statement, but recognizing that a suspect is
innocent is equally important in that it reduces the risk of a false confession
being made in response to increasing pressure, because the innocent suspect ’ s
verbal and nonverbal behaviour is erroneously interpreted as an admission of
guilt.
In the past false confessions have resulted in miscarriages of justice. In
England the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six are the two most famous
cases in which this occurred. In the Netherlands this happened in the Schiedam
Park murder case (Posthumus, 2005 ) and most probably in the Ina Post case
(Isra ë ls, 2004 ; Gosewehr & Timmerman, 2007 ) and in the Putten murder
case (Blaauw, 2000 ). In Norway a 20 - year - old youth falsely confessed to mur-
dering his cousin (Gudjonsson, 2003 ). Several elements in the interviewer ’ s
attitude or behaviour have since been identifi ed as factors that increase the risk
of a false confession (Blaauw, 2000 ; Gudjonsson, 2003 ; Lassiter, 2004 ):
• Right from the start of the interview the interviewer is fi rmly convinced
that the suspect is guilty. Once people form an initial belief or expectation,
they unwittingly search for, interpret and create subsequent informa-
tion in ways that confi rm their beliefs, while overlooking contradictory
data: confi rmation bias and belief perseverance (Nisbett & Ross, 1980 ;
Trope & Liberman, 1996 ; Nickerson, 1998 ; Lassiter, 2004 ). If an inter-
viewer assumes from the outset that the suspect is guilty, he or she will
inevitably interpret the suspect ’ s behaviour and statements in that light,
and will become increasingly convinced that the suspect is guilty. The
interviewer ’ s sole objective is to get the suspect to confess because this is
consistent with the interviewer ’ s conviction, which the interviewer believes
to be the truth.
38
Handbook of Psychology of Investigative Interviewing
• Giving suspects positive feedback when they provide the information the
interviewer wants and negative feedback when they provide information
that the interviewer does not want. This risk factor stems from the inter-
viewer ’ s fi rm belief that the suspect is guilty of the crime being investi-
gated. If the suspect makes statements that tend towards an admission of
guilt, the interviewer reacts positively by saying things such as ‘ You see.
You do know what happened ’ ; ‘ At last, we ’ re heading in the right direc-
tion. That way you ’ ll be able to go home sooner ’ ; ‘ Now we ’ ll be able to
wind this up in no time ’ . If the suspect makes statements that deny any
involvement, this elicits a negative reaction, such as ‘ What a loser you are
to sit there and lie like that ’ ; ‘ If you had any guts, you ’ d say it like it was ’ ;
‘ You ’ ll be here all night at this rate ’ . Positive and negative feedback can
also be expressed in the form of (not) allowing the suspect, for example,
to have a break for refreshments.
• Getting the suspect to speculate and to make hypothetical statements:
‘ Suppose you had done it. How would you have gone about it? ’ Getting
the suspect to explain how they would have committed the crime and
directing their answers leads to the gradual piecing together of a story that
appears to be a confession and may lead some suspects to believe in the
story.
• Suggesting that there is enough evidence to prove that the suspect com-
mitted the crime, but that he or she may simply have forgotten that they
did.
• Confronting the suspect with nonexistent evidence.
• Continuing to question the subject despite the fact that everything has
already been discussed, so the interview essentially involves repeating what
has been discussed earlier and trying to persuade the suspect to confess.
A s tructured m odel for i nvestigative
i nterviewing of s uspects
At the beginning of the 1990s the Police Academy in The Netherlands devel-
oped a model that could be used to structure the questioning of suspects. The
model has since been repeatedly revised and improved in light of new fi ndings
(Amelsvoort, Rispens & Grolman, 2007 ).
The approach proposed by the model is based on the following
principles:
• Minimizing resistance. The interview is conducted in a way that elicits the
least possible resistance on the part of the suspect. This reduces the sus-
pect ’ s reluctance to tell the truth. The suspect is confronted with increas-
ingly incriminating evidence during the course of the interview. The
disclosure of the evidence is carefully planned.