Effective Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques

by Nathan J. Gordon, William L. Fleisher

Effective Interviewing and Interrogation Techniques believably answers the question, How do you know when someone is lying? It also provides a guide for interviewing probable suspects and interrogating likely perpetrators on techniques and tradecraft.

This book covers topics about searching for truth and revealing lies. It presents forensic assessments based on psychophysiology, and assessments on the basis of non-verbal behavior. The book also covers interview and interrogation preparation, as well as question formulation. It discusses the Morgan Interview Theme Technique or MITT, and the Forensic Assessment Interview or FAINT. The book addresses techniques for interviewing children and the mentally challenged, and offers information about pre-employment interviews. It also explains how to understand aggressive behavior and how to deal with angry people. The book concludes by presenting future methods for searching for the truth.

Law enforcement and security professionals, as well as prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers, and civil litigators will find this book invaluable.

The only book to address FAINT, IIT, and MITT in one source Enables the interviewer to obtain a confession that can stand up in court Includes an online workbook with practical exercises to assist the reader

Genres: Psychology, Crime, Nonfiction

400 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 9, 2006

Reviews

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you know when someone is lying? In their mind-blowing book, Nathan Gordon, Director of the Academy for Scientific Investigative Training, and William L. Fleisher, Director of Keystone Intelligence Network, Inc. and former special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, provide a scientific, experience-based answer to this century-old question.
As Gordon and Fleisher explain, humans possess three basic social instincts: they are aggressive, territorial, and tribal. Thus, when left to themselves, non-socialized humans "will take whatever they can, from whomever or wherever they can, while protecting their own territories and families (clans) from aggressors." In entering society, however, we – willingly or not – stop being guided solely by our instincts. Society usually does not tolerate selfishness; it requires cooperative, considerate, and selfless behavior. Its social institutions – religion, government, law etc. – have evolved to help socialize and redirect natural, aggressive instincts toward positive and socially approved ends.
When social institutions and controls colapse, though, humans revert back to their primitive instincts. "Understanding this psycho-physiological trait enables professional investigators to increase their ability to determine the truth; not a small task, in that knowing the truth is probably the single most important factor in the functioning of society," write Gordon and Fleisher. Since trust and interdependence are what holds our society together, we need to know whom we can trust and rely upon. Therefore, it is crucial for us to determine who has violated the norms of trust and represents a threat to an individual or to society as a whole.
Individuals who pose threats rarely announce themselves, and while the results of their deviant behavior are often painfully obvious, they themselves frequently are not; when identified as suspects, alleged perpetrators may lie, dissemble, or cover up their connections to their acts — our self-preservation instincts urge us to deceive and equivocate in so many ingenious ways. As we learn from the first chapter of the book, human behavior has nor changed "since Biblical times": the very first clue to human behavior appeared in the Book of Genesis. After Eve influenced Adam to eat the forbidden fruit and God asked Adam whether he had eaten it, Adam replied that Eve had made him eat it. When God asked Eve about that, she stated that the snake had beguiled her into eating the fruit. Not much has changed since then: guilty persons accused almost always look for someone else to blame for their situation. That's why humans have always needed to distinguish between the trustworthy and the untrustworthy for centuries. The intial methods were trial by combat – the innocent was belived to always emerge victorious – and trial by ordeal – God would protect the innocent from harm. Society's next advancement was trial by torture, but this, understandably, did not prove effective. Every crime can be solved by confession; unfortunately, the one confessing is not always the actual perpetrator.
Today, in order to reveal the truth, investigators rely on the very same self-preservation instincts that produce our attempts to deceive. Those observable clues – eye movement, body position etc. – provided by our autonomic nervous system allow the skilled examiner to separate liars from truth-tellers, and Gordon and Fleisher's book is a fascinating guide to how to do this. Although the readers it targets are obviously law enforcement and security professionals, anyone interested in indentifying deception will find this work immensely entartaining and highly informative; it includes a great collection of photographs portraying the gestures, posture etc. that betray the untruthful person. You would be surprised to discover how many people who consider themselves skillful liars are actually not!

[Ahmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this only because I was curious. Not that i did anything...

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good reading material for airports and flights :P

[Asensv]

really good

[Jordan Gamliel · Rating 5 out of 5]

really interesting book. lots of useful information. The only thing I didn't like was that they referenced dr phil. in order to explain actual human psychological conditioning.