Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

Section 9. Case Study of One Detective 588
Lieutenant Albert F. Pierce, Jr., currently with the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) Police Department and formerly with the Massachusetts
Metropolitan Police and the Massachusetts State Police, reports a similar history.
Pierce has been a police officer since 1978, working in various units and task
forces on violent crimes, white collar offenses, homicides, and more. Most of
his career has been spent in one capacity or another as part of the Massachusetts
State Police, though he spent a significant portion of his time working on special
assignment with the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office. Although he
has taken classes all over the country on various policing techniques, including
interrogation, the Massachusetts State Police Department does not seem to have
any type of comprehensive training in interrogation techniques. Some in-service
training exists, though this is provided mostly by outside experts (e.g., from the
Reid School) brought in to lecture, and once in a while by more senior members
of the department. The basic Police Academy training provided little, if any,
information on interrogation techniques, although, as Pierce notes, this is because
most police officers are not involved in conducting interrogations.
Instead, like most other law enforcement officials, Pierce reports that he
learned most interrogation techniques on the job. Pierce also notes that all of the
classes in the world are not nearly as useful as the skills learned in the field. His
opinion should not be taken lightly, as he has participated in various interrogation
training programs, including those provided by the Reid School and the New
Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts State Police Departments, as well as various
national academies. According to Pierce, if a young detective is lucky enough to
be partnered with an experienced, successful mentor, that mentor will be the most
useful source of interrogation training. As a corollary, one must assume that if the
partner is not helpful or is inexperienced, young detectives will have to learn the
techniques on their own. At the same time, the first thing Pierce did when he took
over the MIT Police Department was send all of the detectives to the Reid School
for what he referred to as Interview and Interrogation 101.
Echoing the literature, Pierce argues that it takes very special skills to be
a good interviewer/interrogator. Most important among the characteristics of a
good interrogator are a true liking of people, an ability to get along with people
of all backgrounds, comfort in talking to people, and knowledge of how to do it.
In addition, anyone who wants to be a successful interrogator needs to be a good
actor: to convey sympathy, empathy, and other emotions that the interrogator does
not really feel. As a young detective, Pierce would often just sit outside or in bars
with his partner and observe and speak with people so that he could learn these
skills and improve on whatever innate abilities he already possessed. He reports
that this was one of the most useful techniques he found to build up knowledge of
how people act and react in various settings. Finally, Pierce notes that the ability
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Unless otherwise referenced, the information in this section is derived from an interview with
Lieutenant Albert F. Pierce Jr. of the MIT Police Department, formerly of the Massachusetts State
Police, on 5 April 2005.
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