Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

e divided into a four-step plan. 577 First, an interrogator confronts the suspect
with the facts and evidence that implicate him, and accuses him of committing,
or being complicit in, the crime. As in the training provided by the Federal Law
Enforcement Training Center (FLETC; see below), this direct accusation is meant
to present a picture of overwhelming certainty that the authorities know of the
suspect’s involvement in the crime. Conversely, this step sets the FBI’s approach
apart from the Reid Technique, which does not advocate such direct presentation
of the evidence in the interrogator’s possession.
As might be expected, suspects usually meet these direct accusations with
denials; in fact, a suspect’s failure to deny involvement is treated as a strong
indicator of guilt. FBI training teaches agents to cut off or stop the suspect’s
denials by interrupting and preventing any additional attempts at denial, and
underscores that a guilty suspect’s denials will weaken as the accusations
continue, while an innocent suspect’s will normally grow in frequency and
intensity. FBI training literature notes that an effective way to cut off denials
“involves interrogators repeatedly acknowledging the subject’s participation in the
crimes while questioning only their motivations for committing the acts.” 578 FBI
training literature alerts future agents to the possibility that guilty suspects will
offer protests, or reasons for their innocence, in response to the direct accusations
after denials have failed. Because these protests usually have some factual basis
and can be defended comfortably by the suspect, FBI training urges agents to
redirect and incorporate them into the following step, rather than attempting to
refute them.
During the third step, interrogators engage in what practically amounts to a
dialogue through which they present themes and arguments meant to persuade
the suspect to confess. In essence, this theme-building step depends on the three
basic tools of rationalization, projection, and minimization to achieve its ends.
This is consistent with the Reid Technique and the training provided to other
federal law enforcement agencies in FLETC. The interrogator derives the themes
and opportunities to rationalize, project, and minimize from a combination of
information provided by the suspect during the pre-interrogation interview and
interrogation, and from the interrogator’s own general personal experience in
relation to human behavior. FBI training literature notes that “the chances of
obtaining a confession increase 25 percent for every hour (up to 4 hours) of
interrogation.” 579 Consequently, interrogators are encouraged to have enough
themes and arguments to fill three to four hours of monologue. Throughout their
monologue, interrogators should seek to prevent the suspect’s mental withdrawal,
which is often a response to the failure of their denials and protests. One suggested
tactic to prevent the suspect’s mental withdrawal is to move closer to him and
use his name to gain the suspect’s attention. Additionally, as the interrogator
rationalizes, projects, and minimizes as part of his interrogation monologue, he
577
Id., p. 73.
578
Id.
579
Id., p. 74.
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