a0005
Interrogation and Interviewing
Aldert Vrij
University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, United Kingdom
1. Introduction
2. The Problem: The Interviewee Does Not Provide Enough
Information
3. The Problem with Further Questioning: Suggestibility
4. The Solution: Questioning Techniques to Minimize
Suggestibility
5. The Solution: Interview Techniques to Enhance
Information Recall—The Cognitive Interview
6. The Problem: Persuading Reluctant Interviewees to Talk
7. False Confessions
8. Detecting Deceit
9. Common Pitfalls in Detecting Deceit
10. Techniques to Improve People’s Ability to Detect Deceit
11. Conclusion
Further Reading
GLOSSARY
cognitive interview Forensic tool composed of a series of
memory retrieval techniques designed to increase the
amount of information that can be obtained from a witness.
ethical interviewing A police interview technique, based on
three principles, designed to encourage a suspect to tell
his or her side of the story; the use of deceit is forbidden,
and psychological pressure is not used.
Reid technique A police interrogation technique, consisting of
nine steps, designed to encourage reluctant suspects to talk
during police interviews; the technique allows interrogators
to use deceit and to build up psychological pressure.
suggestibility The act or process of impressing something
(e.g., an idea, an attitude, a desired action) on the mind
of another.
Encyclopedia of Applied Psychology,
VOLUME 2
The purpose of a police interview or interrogation is to
obtain information about a possible crime. Effective
interviewing is difficult because interviewers risk
eliciting inaccurate information that they may
misconstrue as accurate.
1. INTRODUCTION s0005
The purpose of a police interview with an alleged vic-
tim, witness, or suspect is to obtain information about
a possible crime. During this information-gathering
process, interviewers should attempt to obtain state-
ments that are complete (i.e., include all the relevant
information that the interviewee knows) and reliable
(i.e., contain only accurate information). Those two
aims are not always compatible. Certain interview
techniques readily result in more information, but the
information is often less reliable. Psychologists have
developed interview techniques that increase the like-
lihood of obtaining both accurate and reliable informa-
tion. However, these techniques might not work with
interviewees who are reluctant to talk. For this reason,
other more persuasive interview techniques have been
developed, especially for interviewing uncooperative
suspects. Those techniques have been criticized exten-
sively by psychologists. A major problem is that they
may induce false confessions, that is, suspects admit-
ting to having participated in crimes when in fact they
did not actually participate in those crimes. Obtaining
unreliable information would be less problematic if
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