Humintell draws on state-of-the-art scientific knowledge and decades of operational experience in providing courses on Interviewing and Interrogation.
The goal of this course is to enhance students’ knowledge and skills on contemporary issues and practices associated with the investigative interviewing process.
This course covers a number of areas related to contemporary interviewing and interrogation including active listening and rapport building, structured investigative interview and interview contamination, cognitive interviewing, deception detection, and interrogation strategies.
Learning Objectives
Participants in this course will:
- Identify why listening is a skill that needs to be practiced as well as steps that can be taken to improve their listening skills.
- Be provided tools to help with mental recall during the interviewing process.
- Learn the difference between an interview and interrogation.
- Be provided with steps to successfully conduct a rapport-based interview as well as an interrogation.
- Practice utilizing numerous practical exercises to become skilled within the aforementioned disciplines.
Scientific Background
The High Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) created in 2009 by President Obama was established to join professionals from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the United States Department of Defense (DoD) in an effort to question terrorism suspects in an expedited fashion after their detainment while obtaining articulable intelligence. While the HIG is administered by the FBI, these 3 agencies created the HIG Research Program to study the effectiveness of interrogation approaches and techniques. Based on this research, the HIG testified in 2017 stating the following, “Based on the comprehensive research and field validation studies, it is concluded that the most effective practices for eliciting accurate information and actionable intelligence are non-coercive, rapport-based, information-gathering interviewing and interrogation methods.”
Typical Length
Three (3) days.
Topics Covered
Active Listening
Human beings are naturally poor listeners. This section explores what causes this phenomenon as well as strategies one can employ to improve in this arena. We discuss how one can be aware of the obstacles they may face in listening and how to minimize these. These obstacles may be obvious to some individuals such as level of interest, fatigue, time constraints, physical situations – odors, temperature, etc. Others are hidden obstacles most people never consider, such as thinking of your next question, note-taking, or your partner. While one can never eliminate all obstacles, one can try to identify their presence and focus on minimizing their impact.
Structure of the Interview
There is a clear distinction between an interview and an interrogation. An interview is a dialogue where one tries to obtain information while remaining diligent in looking for signs of deception. In this section we discuss ways to maximize the effectiveness of an interview mainly through the establishment of rapport. We also follow the “Deductive Funnel” model where one starts with broad, open-ended questions, funneling to more direct/closed questions, while sprinkling in behavioral questions. We also discuss things one can do prior to an interview as part in preparation such as the way to prepare a room (chairs with wheels for interviewers, positioning of participants within the room), social media research, making a good first impression, etc.
Cognitive Interviewing
In this section we discuss ways in which one can try to stimulate recall by asking someone to think differently. Examples of this could be having someone provide their recall of an incident in a different order (end to beginning), asking them to re-tell the incident from a different perspective, or providing information based on using the five senses.
Detection of Deception
We tend to transition to interrogations when we have evidence against someone indicating their guilt/involvement or when we detect someone is lying to us during the interview process. In this section we discuss how one can detect deception in someone that they are interviewing. The basis of this detection is establishing normal behavior during non-threatening communication (rapport in the interview phase) and then looking for deviations when an individual is asked a question that is threatening in nature (where they have to admit the truth or lie to us to avoid doing so). We will leverage latest scientific explorations into deception detection pioneered and offered by Humintell.
Elements of the Interrogation
In this section, we discuss ways to effectively conduct an interrogation using an empathetic approach. We conduct a direct positive confrontation, control denials that may be presented, utilize the RPM’s (rationalizations, projections, and minimizations), and conduct a bad/good option when we start seeing signs of receptivity. Furthermore, we discuss the fact that many times what leads to an admission/confession is not how articulate someone is, but how persistent they are, as duration is the key to getting information. We discuss that since an interrogation is more of a monologue, as opposed to an interview being a dialogue, one may find it difficult to maintain the ability to speak for extended period of time. One way to overcome this while maintaining the interest of an individual is through the telling of stories. These stories are those that would relate in a positive way to the subject of the interrogation.
The Instructor
The course instructor is Martin Woods, Supervisory Special Agent, retired, FBI. Martin has 27 years of law enforcement experience at both the local and federal level. He began his law enforcement career as a police officer in Miami where he spent his last 4 years as a homicide detective. He then was appointed as an FBI Special Agent. He has spent over 20 years as a polygraph examiner and computer voice stress analyzer examiner where his sole job was to conduct interviews and interrogations when applicable. He has taught all over the US to local, state, and federal partners while receiving excellent surveys and more importantly, success stories by these individuals after taking his course. He has also travelled internationally over 40 times to teach our international partners. He had the Deputy Director of the Central Bureau of India sit in one of his courses. After the conclusion of the course, the director told him they were going to change the way they did business based on his presentation. Pretty amazing when one can say they had a hand in positively impacting the most populous democracy in the world.
For more information
Our workshops are only for groups and organizations. If you’re part of a larger group interested in training please email us at info@humintell.com.
If you’re just an individual looking for some training for yourself, we encourage you to view our recorded webinars that are available on Body Language here, and Behavioral Indicators here.