Effective Interviewing Techniques in Policing

The interview is one of the most critical parts to successful police work, there are many things to take into consideration before beginning an interview, such as preparation, barriers to communication, listening, verbal and non-verbal communication, proxemics, and the location. An interview is usually the first opportunity for the officers to gather facts and information about the occurrence. Throughout the analysis of the following interview between an elderly lady that was assaulted and an interviewing officer, I am going to demonstrate the interviewer’s strengths, weaknesses, the pros and cons of the interview, the seven steps of a successful interview, and some suggestions the interviewer can better from for future interviews.

Strengths

The opening remarks of the interviewer got straight to the fact, he did not take any time to build rapport with the victim. There were a couple times at the beginning of the interview, the interviewee tries to vent, but the investigator interrupts “We will try and get it sorted out” (Slide 2, 10:02). Again, the interviewee tries to vent and the interviewer interrupts by saying “Yes, I understand” (Slide 2, 10:08), and “that I understand completely” (Slide 2, 10:24). When conducting an interview, the interviewer doing the interview should never say, ‘I understand’ because you do not understand how that person is feeling, everyone experiences trauma differently. As I learned in the Interviewing Methods Course, elderly tend to be more traumatized by a crime than anyone else. The investigator did not ask any closed-ended questions, such as the interviewee’s tombstone information (Name, address, date of birth, phone number, work address, and work

Overall, the investigator did a good job of the interview. The cons of the interview include the introduction, establishing rapport, and allowing the subject to tell the story. The introduction consisted of the interviewer sitting down with a statement form and getting right to the facts of what happened at the scene. In this case, the interviewee was clearly traumatized by what happened and the interviewer did not take any time to establish and rapport. Throughout the interview, the interviewer kept interrupting when she was thinking, she gave non-verbal gestures showing that she was thinking, such as closing her eyes and whenever the interviewer started talking she put up her hand (telling him to stop talking). The pros to this interview were broaching the subject of the interview, review and clarification, summary and conclusion, and keeping the subject informed. The interviewer got right to the purpose of the interview without it being awkward to the interviewee. Towards the end of the interview, the interviewer went over the sketch again to clarify and pinpoint the detail (Slide 3, 14:41). He also clarified the weather, which took the interviewee’s mind of the situation for a couple of seconds. Before he ended