Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

other than obtaining a confession, the paper mainly focuses on literature,
techniques, and practices aimed at eliciting confessions. 110
To these ends, the paper is divided into three parts. Part I provides a survey and
review of the literature on interrogations. Section 1 focuses on the theoretical and
psychological literature about interrogations and confessions. Section 2 presents
and analyzes the empirical data available to support the theoretical approaches and
models. Section 3 surveys the practical literature on interrogations, covering the
major techniques and practical manuals on the subject. Section 4 briefly describes
how an interrogation can “go wrong,” and Section 5 discusses the extent to which
the practical literature takes the empirical data into account.
Part II presents a survey of law enforcement training and practice with respect
to interrogation. Sections 6, 7, and 8 review the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), and the Boston
Police Department Homicide Division, respectively. Section 9 presents a case
study of the training and practices of one very experienced U.S. interrogator, while
Section 10 examines practices in other countries, specifically Great Britain and
Israel. Section 11 then presents a survey of the arguments, issues, and practices
related to the video-recording of interrogations, and Section 12 attempts to tie
all of the practices together and compare them to the empirical and practical
literature presented in Part I.
Finally, in Part III, we offer some general conclusions and recommendations
for further study and research. Most important, we present some thoughts about
the relationship between, and applicability of, law enforcement interrogation
techniques and practices to the current terrorism problem.
PART I. LITERATURE REVIEW
Section 1. Theoretical Approaches to Confessions
Incriminating statements and confession in the context of a criminal
investigation usually entail serious consequences, ranging from reputational and
financial penalties to deprivation of liberty or life. 111 Nonetheless, a substantial
number of interrogations yield a confession or some sort of incriminating
statement. This section explores the possible explanations for this phenomenon
offered by the psychological literature on interrogation and confessions.
110
Compare Inbau (noting that interrogation is best conceived as the psychological undoing
of deception) with R. Leo, “Inside the Interrogation Room,” The Journal of Criminal Law and
Criminology 86, no. 2 (Winter 1996), 279 (assuming that an interrogation is successful when the
suspect provides the detective with at least some incriminating information) and Gisli H. Gudjonsson,
The Psychology of Interrogation and Confessions: A Handbook (New York: Wiley, 2003), 2 (stating
that interrogations, like interviews, are a way of gathering information for use in further enquiries, but
are normally associated with criminal suspects).
111
Gudjonsson, p. 115.
144