Information-Gathering vs. Accusatorial Techniques
State of the Science Report: Mary A. Catlin and Allison D. Redlich
A recent bibliometric study found that over 3,000 articles have been published on criminal interrogations and investigative interviews since 1900 (Denault & Talwar, 2023). Here we briefly summarize the literature on information-gathering and accusatorial interrogation techniques—the techniques used in the United States and England where the majority of the research has been conducted (Denault & Talwar, 2023). We end with a bibliography of suggested works for those interested in learning more.
There are numerous nations that use accusatorial (or confrontational) techniques to interrogate criminal suspects. However, the model that has arguably received the most research attention is the one used in the United States, often referred to as the Reid Technique (see www.reid.com). In brief, the Reid Technique was developed by a police officer (John Reid) and an attorney (Fred Inbau) in the 1940s, and remains the predominant model of interviewing and interrogation used today in the US. The Reid Technique was a direct response to the then-changing ethos of interrogation, which banned the use of physical methods to extract confessions through the Wickersham Commission and the landmark Brown v. Mississippi case (1936). What developed was an interrogation model that bifurcated the interview and interrogation processes. However, the accusatorial model has come under significant fire because of its role in producing false confessions from the innocent.
In the interview phase of the accusatorial model, the primary goal is to detect deception, that is, to determine if persons of interest are deceptive. The Reid Technique uses the Behavioral Analysis Interview (BAI) and the Behavior Symptoms Analysis (BSA), both of which are aimed at diagnosing whether the person is lying or truth-telling. The BAI is a series of question, such as ‘What is your understanding for the purpose of the interview with me today?’ The BSA aims to analyze individuals’ verbal, non-verbal, and paralinguistic cues. However, decades of scientific research have not supported the validity of the BAI or BSA techniques. For example, Vrij and his colleagues (2006) conducted an experiment using the BAI questions in which guilt/innocence was known. They found that most questions either did not distinguish between liars and truth-tellers, or led to outcomes opposite to expectations. For example, truth-tellers were found to be more naïve and evasive when explaining the interview purpose—a finding in direct opposition to Reid’s expectations and training. Further, the BSA techniques of looking for slouching, use of contractions, and latency in responses do not reliably identify deception, but rather serve as cues to anxiety and nervousness (see Meissner et al., 2015).
In the interrogation phase, the Reid Technique model purports that only guilty suspects are questioned. This is because they believe that they successfully weeded out innocent ones during the interview phase. Thus, interrogations under this model are guilt-presumptive. Presuming guilt is a form of confirmation bias, which can lead interrogators to ignore, discount, and reinterpret signs of innocence (Kassin et al., 2010). Indeed, the 1st and 3rd steps of the 9-step Reid approach are “Direct Positive Confrontation” and “Handl[ing] Denials,” respectively. That is, to first confront the suspect with firm knowledge of their guilt and then to disallow the suspect from denying culpability. When guilt is presumed, and innocent suspects are misidentified with the use of ineffective deception detection methods, the risk of false confession is high.
Amassing research over the past three decades or so has consistently demonstrated that the accusatorial method of interviewing and interrogation is flawed and dangerous when used on innocent suspects. Numerous countries, such as England and Canada, that once used such methods, have begun to adopt new methods of questioning suspects: information-gathering interview models.
The information-gathering approach that has arguably received the most empirical attention is the PEACE model. PEACE was developed by the British Home Office in response to concerns raised in research of England’s police forces and judicial criticism (Clarke & Milne, 2001). Unlike the Reid Technique, PEACE is not a bifurcated process, but instead is a five-stage model that includes Planning and preparation, Engage and explain, Account, Closure, and Evaluation (see Milne & Bull, 1999 for a complete description) with the explicit goal of eliciting information as opposed to a confession. Further, the PEACE model does not include an assumption of guilt and instead is a framework that legal actors can use to interview any individual (e.g., victim, witness, suspect) who might have information about a crime.
To elicit this information from both cooperative and uncooperative interviewees, interviewers trained in PEACE establish and maintain rapport, use open-ended questions, and address contradictions via the strategic presentation of evidence (Meissner et al., 2015). In particular, research has focused on the use of rapport, role of memory, presentation of evidence, and assessment of information credibility (Swanner et al., 2016).
Rapport, broadly defined, is the connection established between the interviewee and the interviewer (see Meissner et al., 2023 for an additional model of rapport-based information-gathering). Rapport tactics are typically intentional behaviors, including verbal, para-verbal, and non-verbal behaviors, employed by interviewers to encourage information disclosure from interviewees (Gabbert et al., 2021). Research has found that the use of rapport by interviewers increases interviewees’ perceptions of rapport. In turn, increased perceptions of rapport increase the amount of information disclosed (Brimbal et al., 2019; 2021; Dianiska et al., 2021). Importantly, information-gathering approaches recognize that rapport is not a static characteristic and can change over the course of an interaction (Alison & Alison, 2017).
Because information-gathering approaches rely on the elicitation of information—as opposed to the confirmation of pre-existing beliefs—the Cognitive Interview (Fisher & Geiselman, 1992) is often incorporated into information-gathering interview models. The Cognitive Interview was developed using principles of cognition and memory to facilitate interviewees’ recollection. More specifically, the Cognitive Interview is a set of retrieval techniques that aid interviewees’ memory searches. For example, a retrieval technique could include the reinstatement of contextual cues (Memon & Bull, 1991). A meta-analysis of 65 laboratory and field studies found that the Cognitive Interview increased the elicitation of valid information from witnesses by 40% compared to traditional interviewing techniques (Memon et al., 2010).
Another area that has received substantial research attention is the presentation of evidence during an interview. In the accusatorial context, there is evidence of contaminated confessions where interrogators have inadvertently shared evidence with a suspect which is subsequently worked into a confession (Garrett, 2010). The contamination of confessions is not necessarily surprising as the presentation of evidence during an accusatorial interrogation is a maximization tactic. With PEACE, the presentation of evidence is not meant to maximize perceptions of evidence, but instead to challenge an interviewee’s account (Swanner et al., 2016). A common method used to control the presentation of evidence within information-gathering frameworks is the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE; see Hartwig et al., 2014). Research has suggested the SUE can increase information elicitation (Luke et al., 2014) and the ability to reliably assess the credibility of the interviewee (Hartwig et al., 2014).
Amassing research has consistently demonstrated that information-gathering approaches can elicit more information from suspects and offer techniques for assessing the credibility of elicited information. The next question, however, is whether information-gathering approaches out-perform accusatorial approaches.
Two meta-analyses have directly compared accusatorial and information-gathering approaches on the elicitation of true and false confessions in both the field and laboratory. Evidence from eight field studies found that general interrogative methods had no relationship with the elicitation of a confession. Both accusatorial and information-gathering approaches, however, significantly increased the chances of obtaining a confession in real cases (Meissner et al., 2012). Because these were observations of real studies, a meta-analysis of field work cannot speak to the veracity of the confession. In a subsequent meta-analysis of 27 laboratory studies, however, researchers found that information-gathering approaches increased the number of true confessions and decreased the number of false confessions when compared directly to accusatorial approaches (Catlin et al., manuscript under review). Separated by over a decade of research, both meta-analyses concluded that information-gathering approaches are superior to accusatorial approaches.
It is important to note, however, that evidence from practitioners suggests that practitioners who use accusatorial approaches may not be aware of the dangers associated with that practice. For example, when asked about their interview and interrogation practices, practitioners from nine countries indicated that they use unreliable deception detection tactics to some degree. American interrogators, however, were significantly more confident in their ability to detect deception despite being more likely to rely on non-verbal cues of deception and less likely to record their interviews compared to interrogators from other countries (Miller et al., 2018).
Overall, a review of the science on interviewing and interrogation methods supports a move away from accusatorial approaches towards information-gathering approaches. Regardless of the interview or interrogation method used, the questioning of suspects should be recorded to protect the interviewee, interviewer, and credibility of any information elicited. Although the research has significantly advanced over the past 30+ years, several lingering questions remain about interviews and interrogations (see Snook et al., 2020) that researchers and practitioners can work towards answering in partnership. To that end, individuals interested in learning more about interviews and interrogations are directed toward the following resources:
Kassin, S. M., Drizin, S. A., Grisso, T., Gudjonsson, G. H., Leo, R. A., & Redlich, A. D. (2010). Police-induced confessions: Risk factors and recommendations. Law and Human Behavior, 34, 3-38. DOI 10.1007/s10979-009-9188-6
Meissner, C.A., Kelly, C.E., & Woestehoff, S.A. (2015). Improving the effectiveness of suspect interrogations. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 11, 211-233.
Meissner, C. A., Redlich, A. D., Michael, S. W., Evans, J. R., Camilletti, C. R., Bhatt, S., & Brandon, S. (2014). Accusatorial and information-gathering interrogation methods and their effects on true and false confessions: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 10, 459-486. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-014-9207-6
Redlich, A. D., Kelly, C. E., & Miller, J. C. (2014). The who, what, and why of human
intelligence gathering: Self‐reported measures of interrogation methods. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28(6), 817-828.
Swanner, J. K., Meissner, C. A., Atkinson, D. J., & Dianiska, R. E. (2016). Developing diagnostic, evidence-based approaches to interrogation. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 5, 295-301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2016.07.001
References
Alison, L., & Alison, E. (2017). Revenge vs. rapport: Interrogation, terrorism and torture. American Psychologist, 72, 266-277.
Brimbal, L., Dianiska, R. E., Swanner, J. K., & Meissner, C. A. (2019). Enhancing cooperation and disclosure by manipulating affiliation and developing rapport in investigative interviews. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 25, 107-115.
Brimbal, L., Meissner, C.A., Kleinman, S. M., Philips, E. L., Atkinson, D. J., Dianiska, R. E., Rothweiler, J. N., Olesszkiewicz, S., & Jones, M. S. (2021). Evaluating the benefits of a rapport-based approach to investigative interviewing: A training study with law enforcement investigators. Law and Human Behavior, 45, 55-67.
Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278 (1936).
Catlin, M., Wilson, D. B., Redlich, A. D., Bettens, T., Meissner, C. A., Bhatt, S., & Brandon, S. (2023; manuscript under review). Interview and interrogation methods and their effects on true and false confessions: An update and extension. Campbell Systematic Reviews.
Clarke, C., & Milne, R. (2001). A national evaluation of the PEACE Investigative Interviewing Course. London: Home office.
Denault, V., & Talwar, V. (2023). From criminal interrogations to investigative interviews: A bibliometric study. Frontiers in Psychology, 14. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1175856
Dianiska, R. E., Swanner, J. K., Brimbal, L., & Meissner, C. A. (2021). Using disclosure, common ground, and verification to build rapport and elicit information. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 27, 341-353.
Fisher, R. P., & Geiselman, R. E. (1992). Memory-enhancing techniques for investigative interviewing: The cognitive interview. Charles C Thomas, Publisher.
Gabbert, F., Hope, L., Luther, K., Wright, G., Ng, M., & Oxburgh, G. (2021). Exploring the use of rapport in professional information-gathering contexts by systematically mapping the evidence base. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 35, 329-341.
Garrett, B. L. (2010). The substance of false confessions. Stanford Law Review, 62, 1051-1118.
Hartwig, M., Meissner, C. A., & Semel, M. D. (2014). Human intelligence interviewing andinterrogation: Assessing the challenges of developing an ethical, evidence-based approach. InR. Bull’s (Ed.), Investigative interviewing (pp. 209-228). Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614 9642-7_1
Kassin, S. M., Drizin, S. A., Grisso, T., Gudjonsson, G. H., Leo, R. A., & Redlich, A. D. (2010). Police-induced confessions: Risk factors and recommendations. Law and Human Behavior, 34, 3-38. DOI 10.1007/s10979-009-9188-6
Luke, T. J., Dawson, E., Hartwig, M., & Granhag, P. A. (2014). How awareness of possible evidence induces forthcoming counter-interrogation strategies. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 28, 876-882. doi: 10.1002/acp.3019
Meissner, C. A., Kelly, C. E., & Woestehoff, S. A. (2015). Improving the effectiveness of suspect interrogations. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 11, 211-233. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-120814-121657
Meissner, C. A., Kleinman, S. M., Mindthoff, A., Phillips, E. P., & Rothweiler, J. N. (2023). Investigative interviewing: A review of the literature and a model of science-based practice. In D. DeMatteo &K. C. Scherr (Eds.), Oxford handbook of psychology and law. Oxford University Press.
Meissner, C., Redlich, A. D., Bhatt, S., & Brandon, S. (2012). Interview and interrogation methods and their effects on true and false confessions. Final report to the Campbell Collaboration. Available at http://campbellcollaboration.org/lib/download/2249/
Memon, A., & Bull, R. (1991). The cognitive interview: Its origins, empirical support, evaluation and practical implications. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 1, 291-307.
Memon, A., Meissner, C. A., & Fraser, J. (2010). The Cognitive Interview: A meta-analytic review and study space analysis of the past 25 years. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 15, 340-372. doi: 10.1037/a0020518
Miller, J.C., Redlich, A.D., & Kelly, C.E. (2018). Accusatorial and information-gathering interview and interrogation methods: A multi-country comparison. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 24, 935-956.
Milne, R., & Bull, R. (1999). Investigative interviewing: Psychology and practice. Wiley.
Snook, B., Fallon, L., Barron, W. T., Kassin, S., Kleinman, S., Leo, R.A., Meissner, C., Morello, L., Nirider, L., Redlich, A.D., & Trainer, J.L. (2021). Urgent issues and prospects in reforming interrogation practices in the United States and Canada. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 26, 1-24.
Swanner, J. K., Meissner, C. A., Atkinson, D. J., & Dianiska, R. E. (2016). Developing diagnostic, evidence-based approaches to interrogation. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 5, 295-301. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2016.07.001
Vrij, A., Mann, S., & Fisher, R. P. (2006). An empirical test of the behavior analysis interview. Law and Human Behavior, 30, 329-345. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-006-9014-3
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