Interview and Interrogation

Essay 1 An interview is a planned questioning of a witness, victim, or any other person that may have information related to a case of incident. When interviewing officers should use open ended questions to obtain facts important to their case. In order for an officer to be a good interviewer they should be able to build rapport with people. This means that the officer needs to give and receive trust and respect. During an interview the officer tries to develop behavioral and investigative information. When an interview is being conducted it should be in an area where there are limited distractions, there shouldn’t be any furniture between the two and if possible there should only be one interviewer. When interviewing people the officer should have a relaxed tone and posture. The interviewer should also make sure that the questions that he/she is asking are being correctly understood. An interview should never reveal any investigative information but should always cover who, what, why, when, where, and how.

Essay Two An interrogation is the questioning of a hostile witness or suspect that officers to get facts related to a crime as well as try to get an admission or a confession. Interrogations carry an implied suspicion of knowledge or involvement in a crime. Interrogations are handled differently that interviews. During an interrogation the officers may appear to be having a simple conversation and building rapport but they are using tactics like mirroring, pacing and leading to get information. Mirroring is consciously modeling the suspect’s behaviors like if the suspect talks with his hands than they officer should do the same. Pacing isn’t walking back and forth in this instance but rather sending a subconscious message by doing the same things as the suspect leaning back in a chair. When there has become verbal and nonverbal agreement the officer can start leading the suspect meaning the officer changes his posture or tone to see if the suspect