Podcast about Ethical Police Interviewing – Page 2 – Davidhorn

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt – episode 03
Episode 03.
We’re at a tipping point in interrogation practices – Emily Alison in conversation with Børge Hansen

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Emily Alison, a research associate, author and psychologist at the University of Liverpool, discusses the Orbit method (Observing Rapport-Based Interpersonal Techniques) of investigative interviewing and the importance of rapport building.

The Orbit method is a structured approach to communication that focuses on building trust and understanding with the interviewee, ultimately leading to more accurate and reliable information collection. Alison emphasises the need for interviewers to manage their own behavior and adapt to the communication style of the interviewee. She also highlights the shift towards more scientific and ethical approaches to investigative interviewing, as seen in the UN Manual on Investigative Interviewing release and in the Méndez principles.

Alison encourages individuals to embrace the scientific-based approach of Orbit and to prioritise building rapport in all stages of the interview process.
Key takeaways from the conversation
1. The Orbit method is a structured approach to investigative interviewing that focuses on building rapport and understanding with the interviewee.
2. Interviewers need to manage their own behavior and adapt to the communication style of the interviewee to get as much information as possible.
3. There is a shift towards more scientific and ethical approaches to investigative interviewing, as seen in the UN’s release of the Méndez principles.
4. The Orbit model is a practical and scientifically based approach to replace accusatorial interview methods and create solid evidence while maintaining human rights principles.
About the guests

Emily Alison

ORBIT Creator & Lead Trainer

Emily Alison has worked as a behavioural consultant psychologist for the last 20 years, providing treatment in both the criminal justice sector and in the community.

She specialises in the assessment and treatment of violence and has worked with over 850 domestic violence perpetrators and designed therapeutic interventions for Domestic Abuse, Child to Parent Violence, Healthy Relationships for Children and Young People, Sexually Harmful Behaviour and Sexual Risk Taking in Adolescents, and Gang and Weapon linked offending.

For the last 10 years she has been involved in the development of the Preventing Violent Extremism Tool for profiling potential extremism and the ORBIT framework for Advanced High Value Detainee Interviewing. She has observed over 500 hours of UK police interviews with terrorists, covering a range of ideologies including Paramilitary, Al Qaeda, Right-wing, and ISIS.

Emily has provided training to a wide range of organisations including the FBI/CIA/DoD, The UKs National Counter Terrorism interviewing cadre and the British Army in the ORBIT framework for rapport-based interrogation methods.

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https://youtu.be/I0djdCZMkdo
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Transcript

Børge Hansen

Good morning, Emily. How are you today?

Emily Alison

Good morning. I’m fine. How are you Børge?

Børge Hansen

I’m good. Outside the weather in Norway where I’m at right now, it’s very similar to the first time we met. We actually met in a very picturesque small town in southern part of Norway where the weather was beautiful and we met for the first time me, you, Lawrence and Norwegian police detective Ivar Fahsing. And we talked about for the first time about the work that you guys have done, the work that we and Davidhorn are doing, and how do we collaborate and work on expanding the field of investigative interviewing?

Emily Alison

Yes, absolutely. Yes, well, I’m quite jealous then because here in the UK, we’ve had about 10 months of rain and it persists. So I’ve just come in out with the rain this morning.

Børge Hansen

Yeah. Can you for our listeners, why don’t you give them a little bit of who is Emily Allison?

Emily Alison

Right. Yes. So there’s a question. So I am a research associate and psychologist at the University of Liverpool. And I have specialized in working on interviewing and interrogation practices for at least the last, well, 20 years really, 12 years by research design. The reason I often have trouble answering that question is I also have a extensive background working in domestic abuse treatment, principally for perpetrators, but also intervention with young people and children and families. And I mentioned that because even though they’re separate areas, there’s a lot of overlap between the different areas that I’ve worked.

Børge Hansen

You and your husband, Lawrence, for people working in the field. If you search online for your names, quite quickly there’s another term coming up, orbit. And for people who dig a little bit further, as you say, you invested a lot in this. So why in this field of interviewing, interrogation and all that, have you focused so much on rapport building? And why does the orbit method exist? How did it come about?

Emily Alison

Right. So basically, Lawrence and I were providing training and input to various police forces. And, you know, my background, which was much more therapeutic, Lawrence’s background, which is really around critical incident decision making, but also we both had elements of communication and in 2012 we had the opportunity through research funding obtained through the HIG, an organization in the US which stands for the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group that rolls off the tongue.

Basically, that group was set up under the Obama administration to establish if we are not going to use enhanced interrogation techniques, otherwise known as torture, to secure information from terrorists, then what are we going to use and what science is available to help us solve that problem?

So really the HIG is quite a unique organization in that it, well, for many reasons, it is very much focused on using scientific research and then operationalizing that for frontline practitioners. But also it’s a cooperative between agencies who don’t normally work together in such a way. So the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Defense.

And interestingly, because it’s a global initiative, we were able to secure some funding to look at what is actually effective in that context. And that is how Orbit came about.

Børge Hansen

So you looked at past interrogations and interviews and then deciphered what worked and what didn’t work. Is that the case?

Emily Alison

Absolutely. So in this domain, I mean, that that’s kind of it sounds beautifully simple the way you say it as well. Because one of the issues in this area is that a lot of the research is it’s difficult to access this data. It’s very sensitive data. Agencies often feel very uncomfortable about allowing academic review of it. And so it was a real, again, a measure of the trust in Lawrence and I from our previous years of work with UK policing and their trust in us to allow us to look at actual interviews with terrorist suspects. So all of the data that Orbit is based on, it’s now been replicated on suspects of child sexual abuse and indecent image cases.

It’s also been replicated with sexual assault victims by Sungwon Kim, who’s a previous South Korean police officer and researcher. And so it’s all real world data. And that’s actually quite unique in this kind of space where it’s not asking students to pretend to be terrorists and get a pizza voucher at the end.

Børge Hansen

So yeah, so that’s because that’s from my experience where we see that that’s typically how at least investigators or police officers are trained is on other students on more simulations rather on real. And then their training is based on not actual investigation or cases where you investigate actual cases, but rather simulate. What’s the difference here, you think? Because you say you’re based on your methods and then you have to train on them but on actual real world cases.

Emily Alison

Yeah, I think for me, it’s not to say that there’s no value to be gained from doing that more experimental research with students, because the advantage of that is you can highly control the variables that you’re looking at. But the problem is they aren’t actually, they don’t translate directly to the muddiness and the grayness and the complexity of that real world environment. So, for instance, when you’re looking at there’s a common technique that’s used in interviewing called funneling, which is that you start with a very general series of questions that open up someone’s account. So you say, basically tell me everything you can remember about those events at the weekend. And then you funnel down to more specific questions.

Now the problem with that is if you’ve got someone who isn’t highly motivated to resist you, and by that I mean trained in counter interrogation potentially, you know, is going to actually stonewall you and give you complete silence. How will you ask for a general open account from someone and go more specific if that’s what you have in front of you? So it definitely tells you about how people communicate and gives you some principles to do that sort of transferable research. But for us, it was let’s get right in there into the mud and complexity of what this really looks like. Look at what interviewers are doing that is working to secure information. And we don’t mean just any information. We mean information that’s of intelligence value or evidential value. And then let’s also look at what they’re doing that’s getting in their own way. So what is actually stopping that flow of information?

In very difficult, challenging context with highly resistant people, you know, people who may be being deceptive, who may, as I say, use total avoidance, you know, turn around and face the wall to people who will actually, you know, want to what we call backfooting. So like verbally attacking the interviewer and what they stand for as a way to distract and get out of questions. And student studies struggle to replicate the intensity and complexity of that environment that officers are actually working in.

Børge Hansen

So what would you say is the most crucial factor? Is it the interviewer or interviewee in terms of because, you know, you describe situations where maybe, you know, people are, as you say, stonewalling you or all the ways of distracting or voluntarily or involuntarily distracting you for actually progressing with your interview. Is it the interviewee that’s the challenge or is the interviewers?

Emily Alison

Well, I think that I wish I could say a definitive answer. I think it can be both. But for me, what’s the only factor that you can control? And that’s the interviewer. So it’s the interviewers obligation to manage their own behavior and manage the suspect’s behavior, the detainees behavior. You know, you don’t, so in other words, we know from the orbit model, we’re looking at instinctive patterns of communication. So ways that people respond to each other. That’s why you get this transfer to, you know, all sorts of relationships, how people get on with each other or not.

Because we’re looking at that, we can help the interviewer manage pretty much any form of interviewee behavior. And that puts the responsibility on them where it should be. They’re the professional in the room. That is an obligation that sits with them. If the other person wants to be resistant and attempt to conceal or to be deceptive, that’s their choice. The interviewer needs to manage themselves.

Børge Hansen

So in the material that you guys were researching on, you have all sorts of situations, right? People being collaborative and not collaborative.

Emily Alison

Yeah, absolutely. So you can get someone who talks loads and is actually really cooperative in police interview or appears that way, but they aren’t actually answering any questions. So all of their responses are relatively vague. They try to distract with other topics.

And that looks very different from some of the other situations I’ve described where they may be verbally aggressive or totally silent. You know, these are, these are intense interpersonal challenges that, you know, are pretty unique to that kind of environment. But people might be thinking about, you know, if you’re dealing with your teenager and they’re giving you complete silence or verbally attacking you because they don’t want to talk about what you’re trying to talk to them about.

Børge Hansen

So there’s some parallels. I have a teenage daughter, so I’m eager to learn about how to deal with the rolling of the eyes. my God, as she says. Tell me, so when you started this material, what was the first kind of science that you guys were onto? A structured, because orbit is a very structured method of dealing with various situations. And then, you know, when you’re researching and then seeing what works, it didn’t work. How did that come about? Because, you know, as you decipher through all of this, I remember you said earlier, it was several thousand interviews, right? So kind of deciphering and understanding what happens and because all people are different and situations are different. So how do you categorize and build a structure out of this?

Emily Alison

Yeah, absolutely. So we’ve coded over 2000 hours of interviews now, of suspect interviews. And when I say coded, we’re doing exactly that, just as you described, we’re looking for what’s the underlying system that sits beneath the styles of communication. And to my mind, like, it is really just putting a kind of structure around those ways in which we communicate and those things that help facilitate communication or build rapport and those things that damage it or get in the way. And so because of that, Orbit is giving you two things. It’s giving you a diagnostic tool where you can look at the person across from you and think, how does this person like to communicate? Do they like things totally upfront? Do they like a more warm social chit chat? Do they actually want the other person to take charge of the situation?

So Orbit gives you that kind of interpersonal map and it also tells you how they will react to your response. So in that way, it can give you a strategy going forward. So if you have a issue or a problem that you’re encountering with a particular interviewee, then it gives you a recommendation for how to actually tackle that, that’s going to be suited to that person and their individual style.

And that’s drawn from our sort of background, as I say, as psychologists in the foundation principles of social communication, of personality theory. So we’ve drawn on a lot of foundation fundamentals from the literature. So things like Timothy Leary’s interpersonal circumplex, looking at how people react to each other in communication and how that’s influenced by their personality that sits within the model. We’ve drawn on motivational interviewing, which is Rolnick and Miller, and humanistic theories of communication. So more Rogerian like that, which I mean, that’s quite an interesting thing to bring into this space, because Carl Rogers sort of theory, I call him the anti Freud is basically that, you know, the therapist or the person that the interviewer is not the expert on the interviewee. They are. They’re the ones with the information. So if you’re going to unlock that and get them to speak, then you need to understand them. It’s not about you learning a particular trick or a tactic or a deception that you can use on them to get them to talk. It’s you understanding them in such a way that they feel able to communicate. And I know that sounds a little bit, i mean, it’s great for parenting in a more adversarial space that can feel a bit like alien, I think, to officers. But what we’ve said is, what’s the goal of what you’re doing? It’s to get that information.

Børge Hansen

So you’re applying empathy to the situation, not being sympathetic or agreeing with the interviewer if he’s a suspect. But is applying empathy to the situation you’re in and then building rapport based on that?

Well, absolutely. I mean, that’s one of the fundamental principles. We call them the here principles within the orbit model. The first one is honesty. The second one is empathy. And those two are probably the most fundamental to building a rapport based relationship with somebody where there’s trust.

Emily Alison

and understanding. And that’s what you’re aiming for. It’s not agreement. And just like you say, Berger, it’s not sympathy. You’re not in any way condoning, colluding, making excuses for the other person’s behavior or anything that they say. You’re attempting to understand their mindset, why they’ve chosen to act the way they have, what their core values are, what they care about. And it’s that curiosity. So that’s our sort of tagline is to say, lead your communication from a position of curiosity, not suspicion.

Børge Hansen

In the past investigators were trained by other investigators and if you failed or didn’t excel, well, then you’re not a people person then. That’s what they said. But you’re taking a very different approach here. This is much more structured than just being, you know, having tricks or being, you know, coached by others. This is a scientific way of, is this for everyone to learn?

Emily Alison

Yeah, this is, people will often say, well, rapport building is interpersonal skill is like something you either have or you don’t. And there is definitely a sort of baseline measure of whether you have those skills naturally or not. But with Orbit, as I say, because you basically have a roadmap for how to build rapport, what styles of communication are actually going to be effective, that anyone could actually learn. It’s effortful and it does require practice because sometimes you’re having to. So for me, for instance, I’m sure I’m probably giving away my Midwestern roots here, but I can be a bit bossy and I like to be chatty. So for me, that’s my comfort zone. And I know this about my personality. I hate conflict. I absolutely loathe it, but I can do it now. After 20 years of teaching and instructing and researching orbit, if you put me in a conflict situation, I know what I’m supposed to do. to be effective in that kind of zone. And that for me is gold dust because it’s not natural for everyone to be good at all of these different styles, but you can learn it. And for me, that’s a revelation to think, well, I don’t actually have to be uncomfortable in those situations because this is helping me understand what to do.

Børge Hansen

What separates_ So, as you said, it’s interpersonal skills. Who would typically struggle with learning and who excels at learning this? Because you guys have trained quite a lot of people now throughout the years. What’s the pattern here? Who excels and how do people struggle with this?

Emily Alison

Well, it’s a very individual thing. So one of the first things that we do with people is to and you can actually, we do have a link that we’ve just put on our website, which is www.orbinterviewing.com. It’s a link to a communication questionnaire that kind of tells you. So building self-awareness is the first thing, and it tells you, these are the things that you’re very good at, where you’re naturally comfortable, and these are the things you will struggle with, or where you will actually damage communication. So if you’re going to go bad, what does that look like for you? So that’s kind of where we start and that’s so different for everyone. I would say that when people have been indoctrinated into a system that is very formulaic that almost takes the humanness out of communication, that is often a problem.

They’re so locked into procedure and structure, which is important. It’s important in these professional spaces to have structure. However, if that’s to the detriment of building communication and connection, then you’re going to massively limit the amount of information. Think about when people, if you go to the doctor’s office and they have a, you know, say they’re doing an assessment with you about potential issues around, I don’t know, diabetes or, you know, anything. It could be that they’re trying to assess. If they work through that as a checklist in a formulaic way, even if you have something you are concerned about or that you think might be true, you might hesitate or be reluctant to say it because it’s just quick, quick, quick onto the next question. Do you know the answer to that or not? And you don’t really have time to reflect or think or consider, actually I might disclose that even though it’s a bit sensitive. So I think we’re often trying to bring people back to their humanness in their communication.

Børge Hansen

So in some ways with the Orbit framework, to be a good interviewer, you have to start with yourself and be self-aware of who you are and how you’re perceived by others. Is that the way?

Emily Alison

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. And I think, I mean, that’s, we could link that to what makes you good at empathy. So empathy is built in three stages, really. The first is, do you actually understand your own thoughts and feelings about things? And if you can’t articulate that, that’s already limiting. And then the second stage is, can you see things from other people’s point of view? If you were in their situation?

How would it make you feel? What would you think? But we’re talking about third stage empathy, which is kind of what I call clinical cognitive empathy, which is if I were actually you. So to do that, I’d have to consider, I mean, I know a little bit about, you know, your background and where you grew up and things like that, but I have to try to imagine, well, if I had had those experiences, would I?

Would I make those decisions the same things that you’ve done? And that’s why it’s so challenging. It is a definite expertise to be able to do that with people.

Børge Hansen

So by applying that, you know, advanced level of empathy, you are able to connect better with people and then that’s the means to an end. So one mean one way of getting, you know, building reports so that people can connect to you and then you can have a conversation. Is that it?

Emily Alison

Yeah, I mean, in one of the ways we often talk about this is that the other person feels seen by you. So it’s not actually, sometimes there’s this stereotype of rapport that it’s like, we’ll find, we’ll find some connect. Cause I grew up in like tiny remote snowy place. And I know so did you. I could try to sort of say, well, that makes us the same. you know, and isn’t that a connection? And that’s nice. And it is genuine. If I lied and I actually grew up in New York City and I tried to bluff you, that’s where it becomes a trick. Whereas what we’re saying with rapport building is it actually doesn’t matter whether you and I have similarity or not. I need to just try to understand things from your perspective.

That’s easier if we have some shared experiences than if we don’t. But if we don’t, I can still put myself in that mindset of trying to see things from your point of view. And the point I was going to make about that was when you’re able to do that and do it well and see what someone cares about, values, what they think and feel about things, they feel seen by you. Now that’s important.

Because it builds connection with relationships that matter to us that people were close to. But in a suspect interviewing environment, when someone feels seen by you, it’s harder for them to lie. And that is an advantage. So once they feel seen genuinely by you, it’s harder for them to be deceptive when you then ask those upfront direct questions.

Børge Hansen

You guys have, you know, in orbit there’s a, like a quadrant or a circle with four quadrants there. And then you put some animals to the different behavioral types. Could you just talk a little bit about that? Because you have everything from mice to dinosaurs there.

Emily Alison

Yeah. The animals is a slightly, it came about because I was doing this communication work with families after violence and trying to rebuild communication between parents and children. After there had been quite a lot of trauma in the household, but this was a way that I could teach even, you know, a five or six year old communicate sophisticated communication skills. So it would be a which animal is mommy most of the time? Is she a bossy lion? A shy mouse? Is she a cheeky monkey or a scary T rex? Which animal is daddy? Which animal are you? And I use the animals just as monikers, but then our professionals sort of grabbed hold of it and said, look, we love that. It makes it easy to remember because what you’re actually.

Børge Hansen

So the animals stuck.

Emily Alison

Yeah, yeah, exactly. People like it. But then we end up saying, well, you know, what are you? What area do you like? So like the way I describe myself, I’m lion monkey. So I like things to be warm and friendly and conversational. And I can be a bit bossy and like to be in charge. Just ask my teenager. But then other people like to be on receive. They like to listen. They like to be more in the background. And other people like the sort of T -Rex mode, which is, I mean, that’s definitely Lawrence. We always laugh because we’re total opposite.

You know, he has no problem with conflict and dealing with that like really well, very assertive, confident, frank, forthright and direct. And those are all different interpersonal skills, some natural and some you have to work at. But that’s the sort of model that we start with, which is what’s your style? What’s the person across from you? What’s their style and what is actually going to match best?

Børge Hansen

It’s a way of navigating or categorizing different types of behaviors and then also how to respond.

Emily Alison

I would definitely say navigating because it does have a flow. So we’d say in the same conversation, you could find yourself moving around that framework, which is why we sort of say it’s that diagnostic initially, but then it’s a map. It’s a roadmap for where do I need to take this communication? So if I have to have a difficult conversation about something, I know I’m going to have to be frank and forthright. What response is that going to get? I can use the map to predict and then manage it. So it is quite empowering to think, you know, especially for those awkward communication situations, you have to ask people for money back or you have to tell, you know, I think we’ve got one in the book, which is you have to tell your dad that you know, he may have to give up his driving license, your elderly father. And like, that’s an awkward, difficult conversation. It’s quite emotional. How do you have that conversation and have it well so that it doesn’t damage your relationship with each other?

Børge Hansen

If we shift gears a little bit, so Orbit and rapport building is crucial for interpersonal connections. And then just recently we know that the UN has released a manual for investigative interviewing in criminal investigations. How do you see Orbit in the context of investigative interviewing. And we see a lot of the investigative interviewing practices started in the UK. There was some Nordic work being done. And then it’s now part of UN Mendes principles. The Manual has come. Where do you see Orbit? And how do you see the flow now for what’s happening in the world with more and more focus on these types of investigations. What’s your observations first of all? You’ve been in the field for quite some time now.

Emily Alison

Yeah, I think that for me it’s such an important movement to be taking place. And it does really feel like we’re at this sort of tipping point around interview practice globally. Because there’s more awareness of what is happening in various parts of the world. And I include North America in that and the use of more accusatorial, coercive or deceptive methods. So I’m sure you’ll be aware of the legislation that’s currently sort of sweeping its way across the US, outlying the use of deception in interviews with juveniles. I mean, that barely seems like a sentence you should have to utter which is basically the police shouldn’t be allowed to lie to children in interview. And yet that is something… Because one of the principles you had was being honest.

Børge Hansen

So basically, legislation allows you to actually break that connection with your suspect or witness.

Emily Alison

Well, absolutely. And to an extreme level around implying inconsistencies in their account that aren’t backed up by evidence implying the evidence exists you know or strengthening evidence that when that isn’t there you know seeing your DNAis at the scene and things like that when it’s not i mean you shouldn’t really be we would argue and even globally that there’s plenty of evidence to say you don’t need to do that at all to get information and in fact the fundamental difference, I think, with this is that, and which the Mendes principles bring about, is this removal of externally pressurizing tactics. That the point of an investigative interview is to investigate. So it’s not for me to seek a confession. So the goal is information and an account that I can then test against the evidence. So whether you lie to me or not, I don’t care. I will test whatever you say against the evidence that I have. And that surely is the definition of investigation. And yet, so I think there is this issue where in more accusatory methods, there’s these externally pressurizing tactics that are used to try to secure confession. And that to me is the problem. I mean that’s the fundamental issue. So then you’ve asked me, where does Orbit fit in this framework?

Børge Hansen

I’m sorry, but you know, I think, so this is my personal experience, I think we as humans, you know, we are biased and then we, when we, you know, think one and one adds up to become two, we kind of go for it. And then that’s, you know, when you talk about accusatorial methods, that’s where you kind of say, I believe that your guilt is I’m seeking out to prove that right. And that’s an intuitive way for us humans, because seeing is believing and we have a bias and you know, it’s intuitive. So what you’re, you know, working on investigative imaging that’s kind of more, it’s in some way counterintuitive.

Emily Alison

In some ways in that you, well, you aren’t allowed to make up your mind until you know, until you genuinely know, until there is no other alternative. And sometimes, you’re not going to achieve that level. It’s on the balance of evidence. The whole point is if you’re being objective and coming from that position of curiosity rather than suspicion, then you should be able to suspend that bias that or at least try to mitigate it. Cause you’re right. You know, it’s, it’s often unconscious. You can’t help, but think what you think about the situation, but we’re trying to put in principles that actually counter that natural bias and give you some objectivity to operate from because we know countless cases where you could get 100 people to look at it and 98 % of them would say, I know what’s happened here. And it’s not actually accurate. It’s not the truth. I mean, in fact, we were just out in California doing some training and presenting at a symposium around interview practice.

And at the same symposium were the couple involved in the American nightmare case, which again, you know, is really popular on Netflix. That’s loaded. People watched it. But that case is a case where I think you could show, you know, a hundred people that case and they’d think, I, you know, that looks suspicious to me. I don’t think that’s true. But instead of operating on what’s going on here, the investigators decided.

I know what’s happened. I’m 100 % certain what’s happened and I’m going to pursue that to the exclusion of any other potential explanation. And the consequences of that were catastrophic and heartbreaking. So I think for me, it’s that, and to be fair, that’s not their natural mindset. It’s actually one that’s been trained into them to decide and then to pursue, to pursue that narrative, that confession, you know, it’s literally built into the system, but has no science behind it. So for us, it’s part of orbit. I mean, you asked me how sort of orbit fits into this. And for me, it is that it is bringing a framework for investigators. If we’re going to say, stop using this method that is confession driven, that is bias, that is led by suspicion and confirmation bias instead of science. Then what are we going to do instead if we’re going to take that away from you, which I agree, you know, the Mendes principles is an important platform to say these are the operating principles. But investigators will say, well, how am I supposed to get in there then? How am I supposed to get what you say I’m there to get, they won’t tell me anything. And what we’ve demonstrated with Orbit is using these kinds of communication strategies generates internal pressure. So in other words, if I haven’t done anything, I’m innocent and I’m in a police interview.

I might just naturally feel external pressure. I might feel intimidated by that environment and a bit frightened, but I won’t feel internal pressure because I haven’t done anything. So inside I’ll only tell you everything that I can because I haven’t done it. Whereas if I am guilty, I might feel the same natural external pressure, but the Orbit principles try to mitigate that external pressure by creating honesty, empathy.

You know, all these sorts of principles. And instead it generates internal pressure, which is that I’m finding it very hard to continue to be deceptive or to conceal the actual truth of what’s happened. So, and that absolutely is how it should be. It should be that I don’t tell you something because you pressured it out of me. I tell you because I feel enough internal pressure that I feel I have to explain myself. That should be why someone confesses, not because you force it out of them.

Børge Hansen

Would you say that Orbit is a scientific based method about rapport building, but it’s also investigations. You have to kind of unlock your own bias and then look at the case from many different sides and have an open mind approach to everything. Is it a scientific approach for doing interviews on a whole? Do you think it’s the solution for? I would.

Emily Alison

Well, I would absolutely say, I mean, it’s not an interview structure models like, you know, sort of piece or frameworks like that, that are sort of breaking up the chunks of an interview, the different phases of an interview. And in fact, what we’ve said is the issue is that rapport was kind of often stereotyped as what you do at the start. You know, I ask you how you slept, I ask you if you want a cup of tea, and that that is such a simplistic view of rapport. That is not what we’re talking about when we talk about rapport. We’re talking about actually building genuine trust and connection with the other person. And that is something that is relevant to every stage of the interview. So whether you are in the initial stages of getting an open account, whether you are actually presenting evidence to the individual, we’ve said rapport always massers to the interview. And in fact, a lot of the offensive areas that we work in, it’s not just the offense in front of you. It may be all of the other behaviors that this individual is involved in, whether that’s terrorism, indecent image, rings of offenders, et cetera. So my attitude when we’re training with police officers just to say, do you want them for the thing you have in front of you? Or do you want them for everything that they are actually involved in? And that that that’s what we’re aiming for. And if you want that, then you don’t get to burn the rapport bridge. You don’t get to do the Hollywood slam it on the table and gotcha as psychologically satisfying as that is to the investigator. You just don’t get to have that moment.

You know, you can have it outside the room, but you can’t have it in the room.

Børge Hansen

You talked a little bit about accusatorial methods earlier, and then we talked about the Mendez principles. If you go back to what kind of cultural shifts do you see across the world right now? Because I know you train in Europe, but you’re training in the States and probably elsewhere in the world. How do you see the world changing now?

And where do you see these kind of techniques? Or are there environments where people struggle more with this because they train more for other ways of working?

Emily Alison

Yeah, I think, I mean, I sort of described it as a tipping point. And that kind of means we’re at the crest of the wave. So it’s quite frothy. There’s a little bit of a global bun fight going on between these sort of different approaches. I feel like that’s natural. However, you know, what I would hope and certainly aspire to is that science will win, which is that I understand there’s a reluctance to let go of historically used techniques or methods that people feel, well, that’s worked for me. And you know, it’s very, it’s, you have to accept accusatorial or coercive methods whilst they, you know, we hear that and know that it runs the risk of false confession. It’s also gotten plenty of true confessions out of people. So people feel reinforced by that and think it’s, well, it’s worked. So, but, but for me, it’s sort of supporting people to say, you know, embrace that advance, embrace what knowledge is telling us, you know, change as the knowledge base is changing. And you would do that in any form of policing. So whether it’s digital forensic analysis, it’s blood spatter analysis, it’s, you know, DNA technology, as these things have become more and more advanced and refined, practice has changed with it. Why wouldn’t we do that with interviewing. Why would we just say, well, you’re either a person or you’re not, you know, we know way too much about how to do this job well and effectively to still pretend that we just have to wing it on the basis of, you know, what somebody’s been doing for 20 years. There’s enough science to tell it to point us in the right direction, I think.

Børge Hansen

So how do if if a man, a police officer investigator, I mean, or even a parent understanding, okay, I’m going about this in the wrong way. I’m curious to learn about this science -based proven method of how to build rapport and investigate better. How do I get started? What’s your advice to get started? People are curious about this.

Emily Alison

Well, as I say, it is part of that self -awareness. It is understanding the principles objectively. That’s the main thing for me is that it does remove your emotional impulses out of it. And it says this, you’re still allowed to have those emotions, but they might not actually be helping you achieve your goal. So for instance, say you want your teenager, I mean, this has been a horrendous time for young people as well, kind of post pandemic has made them feel very isolated, avoidant. If what you’re wanting is to sort of encourage your child to, you know, go out, embrace the world, go to university or whatever, you have to have that conversation from a position of trying to understand them, not just ordering them and telling them what to do. So for that purpose, you have to actually be prepared to put the work in and the patience to do things this way, understanding that it will give you that long -term connection, bond, trust between you and your child or you and whoever it is that you’re trying to build that relationship with. And that is massively effortful. So I think that’s probably a good place to start is of thinking who actually do I care about enough that I want to put this work in? To being able to do this in this way, because it is effortful and there will be slip ups. I mean, Lawrence and I have been doing this for 20 years and we still will regularly mess up and also tell each other when we mess up. So also I think that’s the other thing is like, if you are trying to do the right thing and do this in the right way as much as possible, it will protect you from those excesses. And that’s my main thing. For people using it individually, that’s great. For people using it professionally, you should have a system or organization that supports you doing things in the right way, not teaches you how to do them the wrong way, and then you have to overcome it or undo it.

Børge Hansen

Good to hear that you guys are human as well and then you can miss that because I know it’s hard work to learn this and you will make mistakes here and there. And then as you say, with the right training and surroundings, you could learn from your mistakes and improve. So what’s next for the Alisons now? What’s up?

Emily Alison

I think we’ve not had a proper holiday for about five years, so maybe that.

But it doesn’t look near on the horizon. I think for us, we have a number of things where we are tackling, in particular, these accusatorial methods used principally in North America, also elsewhere in the world. And we feel like we, without even quite trying, we’ve ended up squared up in that fight is important to me as a citizen of the world, but also of the United States by birth to try to promote that positive change. I think it pains me to see, this is what I said at this conference in California. I said, please don’t misunderstand that we are about you doing this or changing your style because of the person across from you.

That’s important in terms of how you treat someone who is actually in your custody. But oftentimes the person across from these people have done horrific things, horrendous things to other human beings. But my issue is to also say this is about you and how you see yourself and you surely should not reduce yourself, compromise yourself, undermine yourself for a job where you are trying to do the right thing, you know, see justice done, be the hero, and suddenly it’s turning you into the villain. So for me, it is really a bit of a mission. I think I said after that, I said, I feel like for the last 20 years, we’ve maybe been tilting at windmills. Well, we’re about to blow the windmill up. So I feel quite optimistic about that.

Børge Hansen

This is really cool. Well, I wish you all and ourselves best of luck in Europe and supporting you and on the mission that you guys have. I think it’s the right mission. I think we’re all cheering and supporting you all the way. Thank you, Emily, for being on the podcast and good luck.

Emily Alison

Thank you very much. And same to you, Børge. Thank you.

Read more
July 22, 2024
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt – episode 02
Episode 02.
I’d rather be called naive than tolerant of injustice – Juan Méndez in conversation with Ivar Fahsing

Welcome to the second episode of “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt”. In this session, Dr. Ivar Fahsing sits down with Prof. Juan Méndez, a renowned human rights advocate and former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Recorded in New York during the launch of the UN Manual on Investigative Interviewing for Criminal Investigation, this episode offers a deep dive into Mr. Méndez’s crucial role in shaping guidelines that integrate police interviewing techniques with human rights standards.

Join us as we explore the ethical transformation of modern policing practices, underscore the prohibition of torture, and discuss the global impact of these changes. Prof. Méndez’s insights into the evolution of legal standards and his personal experiences enhance our understanding of the delicate balance between effective law enforcement and the preservation of human rights.
Key takeaways from the conversation
1. The UN Manual on Investigative Interviewing for Criminal Investigations aligns police interviewing techniques with human rights standards.
1. The manual aims to make police work more effective and compliant with international law, particularly the prohibition of torture and coercion.
1. The Méndez principles played a crucial role in the creation of the manual and provide a policy document for national-level implementation.
1. Empathy and effective communication are essential in gathering accurate and reliable information during interviews.
1. The Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine puts pressure on the police to obtain evidence legally and prevents the use of evidence obtained through illegal means.
1. Ethical interviewing practices are crucial in building trust and confidence in the criminal justice system.
About the guests

Prof. Juan Méndez is an Argentine lawyer, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and a human rights activist known for his work on behalf of political prisoners.
Initiator of Principles on Effective Interviewing for Investigations and Information Gathering (Méndez Principles).

Dr. Ivar A Fahsing is a Norwegian detective chief superintendent and associate professor at the Norwegian Police University College. Co-author of the UNPOL manual on investigative interviewing in cooperation with the Norwegian Centre of Human Rights.

Listen on Youtube
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Transcript

Davidhorn

Hi everyone, I’m Børge Hansen, CEO of Davidhorn and welcome to the second episode of Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. We are absolutely thrilled to have an incredible conversation hosted by Dr. Ivar Fahsing with Prof. Juan Méndez the legendary human rights advocate and former UN Special Rapporteur on torture.

We caught up with Prof. Mendez in New York during the launch of the groundbreaking UN Manual on Investigative Interviewing for Criminal Investigations.

Get ready to deep dive as we explore Prof. Méndez’s pivotal role in creating guidelines that align police interviewing techniques with human rights standards. We’ll discuss the ethics of modern policing, and we’ll reinforce the absolute ban on torture. It’s an inspiring and fascinating conversation you don’t want to miss.

Let’s get started.

Ivar Fahsing

We are meeting at the launch the new UN manual on investigative interviewing for a number of police chiefs from around the world. And I remember…

You have to correct me if I’m quoting you wrong now, but when this manual was validated in November, you were part of that validation meeting.

Juan Méndez

Yep.

Ivar Fahsing

And I remember you said something like this, that. I think initially I said that if it wasn’t for the Méndez principles, it would be harder to get this UN manual. But then you said something that you kind of turned it around and said, the manual validates the principles. So I was thinking that could be an interesting start of the conversation. If you agree, if I’m quoting you correctly?

Juan Méndez

I think you are. In my experience, at least, you know, I first published my report to the General Assembly, it was my last report because my term was coming to an end. And I had consulted with a number of people before writing the report. And on that occasion, I called for a protocol because that was my, you know, my legal bias to call it a protocol.

But the idea was to have a set of guidelines that the police could use to make the work more effective, but also more compliant with the international human rights standards. And particularly the standard of the absolute prohibition of torture, of psychological torture, and of any coercion. Because all of that is part of international law.

And that immediately when that report was published and discussed at the General Assembly, this is October. And we got such a good reception, in part because we had calls on some very good specialists to do the early consultation that helped me draft the report and among them Asbjørn Rachlew, Mark Fallon, a lot of very good people. And so we already had an audience. I mean, they had been part of it to begin with, but the UN police actually picked up on it very early.

There was so much interest that we had a meeting about how to, you know, take it from there and produce something along the lines of what I had suggested we needed. And the UN police was there from day one.

As it happened, I didn’t know about it, but they were also working on what is now the UN police manual.

And as we worked on our principles, there were parallel contacts between UN police and us. And so the ideas were very much shared. I mean, we all agreed that we needed a set of guidelines and that the set of guidelines should be based on the 30 or 40 years experience of people who had looked at this and had published and researched about how good police work can be done that is compliant with human rights standards, guarantees all the safeguards that suspects should have in a democratic police environment or criminal justice environment and at the same time provides a positive and affirmative vehicle for police to do its work more effectively than relying on coercion and things like that that have been proven to be counterproductive.

Ivar Fahsing

Absolutely. So if you look at the relationship then between the Méndez principles can be seen more as a policy document on a national level.

Juan Méndez

Yeah.

Ivar Fahsing

Whilst the UN manual for how to do interviews is more a guidelines for practitioners.

Juan Méndez

Yes. Well, I mean, the principles that we decided in the steering committee and the advisory group, you know, we took about 100 people involved in this exercise and took us about four years. We decided to distill the fundamental principles of methodology that has already been proven to be the right one and has been studied also. So we basically did not want to adopt one standard or, you know, this is the way the Norwegian police does it or the British police does it. We kind of condensed and distilled the fundamental principles knowing that that is not enough to be a training manual. That a training manual has to observe those principles but go beyond them and have much more in the way of methodologies of training and even details about where to sit and how to approach the first questions and then wait for answers, things like that.

What we were trying to accomplish, it was not necessary to get into all those details. But we also recognize that our principles require the drafting of manuals or proper training of police and particularly of people conducting interviews. In the case of the UN police, they decided to go into more detail, among other things, because the UN Police Manual is like a minimum standard that all contributing police forces have to agree to before they can join peacekeeping operations, for example, and things like that. So in their case, they have to be more detailed and more specific.

I think they also benefit from experiences that were already there from literature and training exercises that the Norwegian Center for Human Rights has been conducting for years that of course were beyond what we were trying to accomplish. But I think it was a good coincidence that they were working on something as a kind of minimum standard, but more detailed. And we were working on something that eventually could be considered a sort of non-binding legal instrument, to judge whether, you know, in interviews with suspects, with witnesses, and with victims, was conducted appropriately under, you know, kind of standards that could universalized.

Ivar Fahsing

Exactly. I think you’re right. I think that’s like my good friend, Asbjørn sometimes like to say is that when you take away a tool from a petitioner, no matter if it’s illegal, it was his tool. So you have to replace it with something that they can use.

Juan Méndez

Yeah, I heard Asbjørn say you have to give the policeman alternatives. Yes and alternatives that are human rights compliant, but that are also more effective. So you have to start by understanding what the whole purpose of the interview is. And I also heard Asbjørn say the purpose of the interview is to get to the truth. It’s not to obtain a confession, it’s to get to the truth. And to get to the truth while also observing all the procedural guarantees and safeguards.

And I think that’s exactly what we are trying to do with this.

Ivar Fahsing

We have discarded the word truth also, actually.

Juan Méndez

Really?

Ivar Fahsing

Because very often when that’s put into practice, that ends up with the police version of the truth. They think they already know the truth. Yes. And they just want you to confirm. So we were at, and this was very important when we did this kind of change in Norway 25 years ago was to say that purpose is to gather accurate and reliable information with relevance to the matter of investigation. So every time they came up some kind of deviant idea, you just kind of matched it towards the purpose. Will this foster accurate and reliable and lawful at behavior or will it do the opposite?

Juan Méndez

Exactly. That’s why in our principles we talk a lot about avoiding confirmation bias, because you’re absolutely right that perhaps people who conduct interviews pursuant to the old model think that they are after the truth but they’re after the truth that they already think they know instead of letting the facts inform.

Ivar Fahsing

Exactly. So that’s, it was actually something that just came to us. We didn’t actually really have this strategy about not talking about the truth, but in the end, we just found out that, well, neither lies or truth are really productive way because it’s black and white and it’s probably beyond what you can expect to find in investigation. In investigation, it’s more shades of gray. Which stories are receiving most consistent support and are coherent? With most of the sources of evidence. And is that coherence strong enough that you can say it goes beyond a reasonable doubt. So this is the way we just naturally found out we need to have this new way of thinking about what the purpose is. And that was so useful because everybody agreed on that purpose. And then we can just use that every time you came to a difficult discussion: well, will this help this purpose or not? Now that we have agreed on this, that was very valuable for us.

I was thinking, Juan, since, you know, you’re not really a fan of the fact that the principles now mostly are referred to as the Méndez principles. The principles real name is the principle for effective interviewing and information gathering. Nevertheless, you played a very important role in creating this set of principles. And that’s mostly what people talk about when it comes to Juan Méndez. But I know that you have been in this game or business for a very long time. And I wondered if it was possible for you to tell a little bit about how did it come around that you actually spent so much of your life in these questions.

Juan Méndez

I was studying law in Argentina when we were undergoing a certain, you know, period, one of many periods of turmoil in my country. And there were military dictatorships, not as bad as the last one, but not good either. And there were resistance movements and movements using political violence and the response to them was very harsh. And it included torture, very, very significant torture. Not openly and always on denial, but not even making a big effort to deny the torture. And this was true of all of South America and perhaps of other parts of the world as well.

And if you were a law student at that was particularly intent on finding a solution to the use of torture. And of course, my first interest was to combat torture as used against a political opponent.

It became very clear that it was used against common crime offenders or even suspects of common crime offenders as frequently and even as violently and as brutally as enemies. So, you know, many people in my generation made it a big, you know, kind of north of our activity to combat torture and to combat first by denouncing it and then illustrating methodologies and things like that and insisting of course on legal prohibitions.

Denunciations and publicity around them probably played some role but as the political crisis became worse and worse, there was, it was not enough to, to even diminish the incidence of torture. And it came to a point where, you know, you, I and other lawyers and some of us recently graduated lawyers started taking up defenses of people who were accused of crimes against the state and the like. And we felt that one important way to do it was to investigate and denounce the possibility that they had been tortured in order to confess or to obtain evidence against others, etc. And so it was very much a part of our legal strategy to investigate torture. And in, for example, in my hometown, we discovered a couple of places that were kind of like torture settings.

They were mostly recreational areas that the police used for themselves for the time. On Sundays, they went with their families. But during the week, because they were kind of secluded and outside, they used them as torture chambers. And of course, we discovered them because common crime offenders came to us and told us.

This, you want to find a place, this is where it is. And we actually went with a judge, and we found torture instruments and everything. And so that put us kind of in the limelight. And so at some point I was arrested myself and of course they tortured me as well, you know. And this was already under the latest dictatorship where not only torture, but disappearance of persons and extrajudicial executions became much more rampant. And I was very lucky that they didn’t have much on me. They tortured me, but they didn’t know what to ask, but so I was able at least to sleep at night knowing that I didn’t offer evidence or even information or intelligence against anybody else to suffer the same fate. And besides, my family and my friends who were lawyers like me worked very diligently and put a stop to my torture early enough so that I didn’t have to suffer as much as others on that same stage. But then I went to prison for about a year and a half, and I was not charged with any crime, but I was held under the state of emergency. And a lot of the people who were there with me had the same torture happening to because I was the lawyer and they wanted to consult me about how to improve their procedural situation in the criminal case against.

I learned of all kinds of methods of torture and how you can fight them and things like that. And so, when I left Argentina, and I was allowed to leave relatively early compared to other people who were still in prison, and I landed in the United States, I started to try to help the people who were left behind in Argentina.

It became a sort of a natural aspect of my human rights work to work against torture. And then I worked for like 15 years for Human Rights Watch and we did a lot of different things but some of them had to do with torture of course and documenting it in our reports.

But actually, I became much more focused on torture when I became the Special Rapporteur, many, many years, many decades later. But yeah, I mean, I came to it through this circuitous route and kind of long route, but of course my predecessors in the Rapporteurship and my successors in the Rapporteurship have come at it from different angles. As far as I know, none of them were themselves victims of torture, but they are doing excellent. They were doing and are doing excellent work combating torture as well.

Ivar Fahsing

You say when I became the special Rapporteur, that for me that is a very, very special position. How do you want to become that? How did that happen for you?

Juan Méndez

Well, in my case, this was 2010. And by then the Human Rights Council had been already created and the whole way of appointing people to the different special procedures as they’re called uniform. And so when an opening was there, and Manfred Nowart, who was my immediate predecessor, his second term was coming to an end, can’t hold the position for more than two terms of three years each. So the Human Rights Council actually opened the process of asking people to suggest names or to apply themselves. And three NGOs from the South, from Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, suggested my name. And because I had been, for many years, working with Human Rights Watch then with the International Center for Transitional Justice. Then I was at the Inter-American Institute on Human Rights. And I actually had been Kofi Annan’s Special Advisor on Prevention of Genocide. So my background seemed interesting. And so they appointed me.

Ivar Fahsing

I see. So what do a special Rapporteur actually do?

Juan Méndez

Well, it’s one of several different thematic Rapporteurships. You know, there’s ex -traditional executions, disappearances, you know, women’s rights. There’s many different, like 40 -some thematic Rapporteurships.

Torture is one of the oldest ones. It was created back in 1985, I believe. It was the third one of a thematic nature that was created. The first one is the Working Group on Disappearances. The second one is a Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions. And the third is a Special Rapporteur on Torture. And before me, there was several, you know, Northern European jurists, very highly respected people who did wonderful work.

The four people who preceded me had done such very good work that it was possible to exercise the mandate with just following the path that they had, you know, kind of created for it.

It’s a mandate that has a lot of credibility because torture is one of those issues that not even the countries that do torture accept that they do. It is kind of a tribute to how well established the prohibition on torture is that many countries practice it but none recognize that they do acknowledge that they do so they use euphemisms they say it’s all a lie it doesn’t happen it’s not true, but the fact is that at least they don’t defend it and that’s already a good starting point now of course.

What my predecessors and I and my successors also have done is to try to apply the prohibition of torture to what the convention says about what constitutes torture. And that includes many different settings and situations and things like that. But in my experience, the setting in which most torture happens, and it’s the most brutal, is in the interrogation phases at the beginning of detention and inquiries into crime, and in my six years, I saw this happen in third world countries, middle-level and highly developed countries, there’s always some excuse for why. You know some harsh treatment is needed. They don’t put torture but enhance interrogation is what the US government said during the global war on terror, for example. The thing is that it’s still prohibited. No matter what the circumstances and what the crisis is, it still shouldn’t be done. And it does seem to happen because of what your colleagues have long studied as a confirmation bias.

What really happened and you just need the evidence of it. And if the evidence comes in the form of a confession, that’s the best piece of evidence possible. And that’s why we have so many judicial errors and so many unfair convictions and that then proved to be completely impossible. And so coming up with a better way of doing the inquiries is perhaps the best tool that we have for preventing torture.

Ivar Fahsing

Absolutely, I completely agree. When we do training around the world we have created a case. We have got police officers and I guess all of us, we learn better by storytelling and cases than just lecturing.

Juan Méndez

Examples.

Ivar Fahsing

Exactly. So we have created a case of a missing person case. And I used the missing person because I know that that is the case that have the most possible explanations. It can be nothing. This missing girl can just be sitting in the garage smoking a joint. But she didn’t want to tell her parents. So she’s not missing at all. Or she can have runaway, or dramatic way, or non -dramatic way, or it can be all the way under spectrum to a rape and murder, or kidnapping, trafficking, or whatever. So there are many possibilities here.

But very often, and I kind of fueled it, gave some suspicion in the case towards the fact that she was a Kurdish girl and that there had been some problems with her dad. And voila, most of the officers are stuck on the idea that the dad did it. To the degree where one of the Norwegian detectives who was in the sample actually said, the dad did it, lock him up and throw away the key.

Juan Méndez

Yeah

Ivar Fahsing

So I think you’re absolutely right that police officers very often have this guilt presumption that’s effective for them. After all, that’s a job to look after crime. Yeah. And we have it somewhere you can understand it that they have the more that has also what that’s rewarded.

If you solve crimes, you’re good. If it isn’t a crime, well, there’s no use for you. So it’s an interesting how this really easily can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Juan Méndez

And there’s so much pressure on the police officer to solve crime, quote unquote, that it’s understandable that they cut corners. And even if they don’t think they’re cutting corners,

If someone is kind of intimidated by the whole surroundings, and then says, I’ll tell you everything, you just take everything. That’s why I really like this decision by the Supreme Court of Brazil issued a few days ago. Because the majority opinion states very about lower court judges, it’s not a matter of the presumption of truth by what the police says or the presumption that all suspects are always lying to improve their situation.

In both cases, you have to have corroborating evidence. And if you don’t have corroborating evidence, you’re not doing your job. You cannot just rely on what is said.

I really think that that is a useful thing. I really like the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree doctrine because it does put a lot of pressure on the police to do the right thing and to look for evidence and not to, you know, it actually excludes evidence that may have been formally obtained in the correct way, but it originates on an illegal way of finding. Anyway, I think the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine is already law in other jurisdictions, but it’s not international.

Ivar Fahsing

No, not at all.

Juan Méndez

No, I mean the Convention Against Torture does mandate the exclusion of the confession, but it doesn’t mandate the exclusion of successive evidence. Not yet, anyway.

Ivar Fahsing

I remember also one of the guys who inspired me when I was starting this work together with Asbjørn in Norway 25 years ago was the reading by the late Chief Justice Earl Warren?

Juan Méndez

Yeah, of course.

Ivar Fahsing

I think that was back in 59. Where he said something that, well, one thing about these involuntary confessions is of course their inherent untruthfulness. But the more problematic, even more problematic thing about it is the fact that officers of the law are systematically bridging the law to uphold the law and then in the end it becomes a bigger problem, the problem they actually try to fight. That’s a very well good way of putting it.

Juan Méndez

Absolutely. I mean, I agree those of us living in the global South where, you know, the state is always underfunded and even the police is underfunded You can understand how they think that they’re upholding the law by breaking the law and then it becomes a vicious circle, you know and the the tolerance for tolerant before torture becomes tolerance for corruption as well. And so, you know, the police tortures the people who don’t have the wherewithal to, you know, bribe them. But they look the other way with very serious crimes when the money is cannot rely on police forces that are so inherently broken down that way. And starting to find a way for the police to recover their standing in society, the respect of the citizenry that they need to have in order to do their job well. Because as I always say, I mean, a police that tortures intimidate a population, but it doesn’t enjoy their confidence. So they cannot really rely on cooperation because they only rely on intimidation.

Ivar Fahsing

And they are deemed to become a paracast in their own country.

Juan Méndez

Yeah, or at least they have a very bad reputation. You know, the people suspect that everything that they do is wrong, and at least under suspect motivations, things like that. And that also, you know, kind of this kind of discredit transfers to the whole criminal justice system.

Ivar Fahsing

Exactly.

Juan Méndez

Where people start guessing that everything that the prosecutors and the judges do also has some illegal motivation behind. And it’s a vicious circle that’s very difficult to break. But I think starting with a methodology for investigating crime, that gets better results while at the same time respecting the complying with prohibitions on ill treatment. It’s probably one angle to start to recover this kind of civic trust.

Ivar Fahsing

I would just like to ask you one final question from it is, you know, you have been working with this for a very, very long time. And I’ve been working with it for around 25 years. And sometimes I feel, Ivar, are you a little bit naive thinking that these small efforts that we try to do can actually make this a better world? Do you sometimes think that?

Juan Méndez

Yeah, of course I think about it. I think in fact that, but I prefer to be called naive than to be called tolerant with their injustice. So I have to keep the faith that there are ways of improving, you know, in discrete and limited aspects, but improving the circumstances that we live in, that because the alternative is to just surrender and think that justice cannot ever be achieved. And in the meantime, I also feel that even for everybody who calls me naive that torture is not inherently necessary in the investigation of crime, I can come back with examples of saying, but look, it results in injustices, it results in, you know, in the justice system having to, you know, throw everything out and release people, maybe people who should not be released, but you’re prejudging and harming the justice system by using, you know, illegal means. And also, and I always insist on this larger point, that for the state to function effectively, and particularly the criminal justice system to function effectively, both the court system, the prosecutors, and the police, have to enjoy the confidence and the civic trust of the population that they serve. And if you jeopardize it by using illegal means, you’re actually doing a disservice to your own mission.

Ivar Fahsing

Thanks a lot.

Juan Méndez

No, thank you. Great conversation.

Read more
July 4, 2024
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt – episode 01
Episode 01.
The Founding Fathers of Investigative Interviewing in Norway

Listen

Welcome to “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt,” a podcast series that welcomes you into the world of Investigative Interviewing – an ethical and non-coercive method for questioning victims, witnesses and suspects of crimes.

In this first episode of “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt”, we explore the origins and transformative journey of Investigative Interviewing in Norway with pioneers Dr. Ivar A. Fahsing and Dr. Asbjørn Rachlew. They discuss their early challenges in shifting law enforcement mindsets and the strategic moves to take their innovative methods to a global audience.

The episode examines the necessity of exporting Norwegian expertise in Investigative Interviewing and highlights the collaboration between the public sector and commercial tech developments to aid police work.

Listen in as Fahsing and Rachlew share insights on building rapport in interviews and the critical phases and outcomes of the Investigative Interviewing process.

About the guests

Ivar A Fahsing (PhD) is a detective chief superintendent and associate professor at the Norwegian Police University College. Co-author of the UNPOL manual on investigative interviewing in cooperation with the Norwegian Centre of Human Rights. He has published widely in the field of investigative management and decision-making, investigative interviewing, detective expertise, knowledge-management and organised crime. He has 15 years of experience as a senior detective in the Oslo Police department and at the National Criminal Investigation Service of Norway.

Asbjørn Rachlew (PhD) is a former homicide investigator at the Oslo Police District and in 2009 he defended his doctoral thesis, Justice Errors in the Police Investigation. Rachlew was a professional adviser during the interrogations of Anders Behring Breivik after the 22 July terror. Today he is a researcher at the Norwegian Center for Human Rights, public speaker and expert on investigative interviewing.

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Transcript

Davidhorn – Beyond A Reasonable Doubt podcast – S01E01 – Ivar Fahsing and Asbjørn Rachlew

0:00

Asbjørn Rachlew: We’re going to talk about investigative interviewing and that’s a huge topic in itself. But not bringing in the history would be impossible when we talk about investigative interviewing.

Ivar Fahsing: Absolutely. So the historical, should we say, perspective? But before we get into that, the first time you and I about met that was back in 1990. It was at the police Academy in Oslo.

INTRO

Their story goes way back. Join us as we explore the journey of the founding fathers of Investigative Interviewing in Norway—Dr. Ivar Fahsing and Dr. Asbjørn Rachlew. Together, they have worked tirelessly to change the mindsets of law enforcement both in Norway and globally. Listen to how it all started, right here on the first episode of ‘Beyond a Reasonable Doubt’ with me, Børge Hansen, CEO of Davidhorn.

1:04

AR: And then we got this robbery case, the most famous robbery, should we say, gang in Norway. They were called Tveita Gang. And we got that case, you and I.

IF: Yeah.

AR: It was a break in. It was not a robbery. It was a shock break.

IF: Yes, a shock break in they made. But no, it wasn’t. Was it Asbjørn? You’re talking about the David Anderson break? But wasn’t that done concealment?

1:37

IF: Didn’t they park a car outside and go in? It looked like a car that was collecting carpets for the cleaning from the entrance area. And they hid behind that car and broke in. So it was the opposite of a shock break in that way that people were just standing outside with their backs towards the windows of this very shop while it was looted.

2:08

But it’s interesting how memory works.

AR: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

IF: Because I remember that most of the other cases they did have, they went in quite brutally, and they never did robberies, I think, but they did break-ins in a spectacular way. But, I think, this case specifically was done in a very concealed way. And no one actually understood what had happened until people who actually worked there came in a couple of hours later in the morning.

2:40

So that was part of our investigative problem, wasn’t that? No one actually saw what they did; Paul Anger was the mastermind, and he had been planning this very thoroughly. So he went inside there and saw where the alarm had gone off. Where does it not go off? So he had a safe route through the whole shop. How you could go like a maze and steal these things, where are the most valuable things?

3:16

What should you get and then get out again. And himself, he didn’t do it because he was the planner, so he got other people to do it. He didn’t immediately connect to the crime. And that led us to the bigger project when the famous painting Scream was stolen.

3:38

That had exactly the same pattern.

AR: Yeah.

3:42

IF: And that was big and then we were really in with the big guys at the CID. Both of us.

AR: Yeah.

IF: And that was, I think seen already then as a quite important recognition for both of us. We felt proud.

AR: Yeah.

3:58

IF: Because, as you said, becoming a detective at that level at the beginning of the 90s was actually a huge step. We got to wear suits. There was no messing around. There were no jeans at that time at the CID. We got a higher salary, even got higher rank. We became sergeants overnight.

4:25

We went from constables to sergeants in one move. Relatively quickly at least.

AR: Yeah.

IF: So it was also a promotion.

AR: Absolutely. And that brought us from the downtown to the headquarters where…

IF: Where all the big guns were. And people you just heard of, legends. People you saw in the media.

4:56

AR: Oh, yeah.

IF: And now, all of a sudden, we were part of that. There was an aura of, you know, this is not a place for everybody. You had that feeling that you were privileged or handpicked.

AR: Yeah. Handpicked. Yeah. We can talk about the old days, and I mean, there are so many stories, but we are here to talk about investigative interviewing. You know, the the most important part of our job as detectives – how to interview witnesses, victims and suspects of course.

5:29

IF: It’s interesting to take that back to the 90s because, at that time, we were not head of the investigations. We were, you could say, rising stars in a way, young with potential.

5:40

But where you could prove your potential was very often in the interviews, wasn’t it? And at that time, it’s not a secret that when it was difficult, we needed a confession.

AR: Yeah.

5:59

IF: And that’s where you were really good. If you had cases where you had less evidence, and you needed to push and help them to put it that way to make that confession. Wasn’t it?

6:12

AR: Absolutely. When I travel around the world now, today, 30 years later, you know, we’ll come back to that, but we do a lot of training and lectures and talks around the world with the United Nations and the Council of Europe, etcetera. And I always start my lecture with this very opening. Like most detectives around the world, I was taught to believe that once we had a suspect, it was my job to get him to confess.

6:56

IF: Absolutely.

AR: I mean, some detectives took that angle, should we say, harder than others. But I was definitely into that view of the world, and I was applauded, you know.

7:21

IF: It gave a lot of status. If you could deliver that. It was such a relief because then you can slowly move on to the next case. But as you probably remember, I was not of the same opinion. I could argue with people in tears and say that it doesn’t make sense what you’re saying, but I was not in the same way as you, focused on necessarily a confession. I remember it was specifically one case where this came to really surface strongly. It was an attempted murder, wasn’t it, for the Outlaws president?

8:07

AR: Yeah, that’s right. So we’re back in mid 90s, the biker war in Oslo between Hell’s Angels and Bandidos. But there were other gangs as well, as you said, the Outlaws etcetera. And they were shooting at each other and killing each other, and they were even bombs in Norway at the time. And one of the cases certainly was a shooting.

8:36

And we finally had a suspect, and we had evidence against him that he was probably the shooter. But the big question was, I would presume, because we wanted the gang leaders, we wanted the heads of Hell’s Angels or whatever. And I remember we were on the case and I remember at the time we didn’t have any recordings, you know, so we couldn’t follow the interviews or the interrogations.

9:07

But I read the reports, and you were interviewing the suspect, and in my opinion, you were not getting anywhere. And in my world at the time that was, you did not get him to confess who gave him the weapons and who ordered the killings, etcetera. So I went to our senior investigating officer Anne Karin, and I said, OK, listen, Ivar has been interviewing this guy now for weeks, and we’re not getting any results.

9:48

And I think that we should be tougher on them. And she looked at me and: Yeah? You wanna give it a go? And I said, yeah, I’m ready. And you were involved in the discussion, and you said, OK, if you want to try that. But I feel I communicate well, we’re talking well.

IF: Yeah. I don’t know if everything he says is true, but he wants to talk to me.

AR: You were gathering information, but to me at the time…

10:19

IF: We didn’t move ground quickly.

AR: Yeah, exactly. And it was decided then that I would take over the interview of the suspect. And I think that interview lasted for 5 minutes or something because I came in there and really, you know, from the top came down on him and, you know, nothing physical or anything. I mean we never took part in any of that in Norway. We were lucky in that way that our colleagues before us abandoned all kinds of physical techniques. There was no physical torture. But I was certainly coming down on him and then he just, I think he just stood up and said I don’t want to…

IF: Take me back to the cell.

AR: Yeah, and that was it. No more information for us.

IF: What’s his name? You remember? Jan-Ivar. But he said it was an act of self-defence. He was also shot in the foot because I remember the first interviews with him I had to take at the hospital.

11:37

And how could I know without having any evidence that this was actually an attempted murder? You know, I could not know that. He said: I went there, yes, I was armed because I was kind of a gang war going on and I was kind of visiting an enemy of ours. But I went there with different intentions and it didn’t entirely match the stories of the other people. But we didn’t really know who started the shooting and what was the reason for it. So there was no clear motive like in other cases like we had where you could see A started B and B started C and it was much clearer in, you know, sequence of things. I was lacking that here. So I didn’t really know and I just tried to find out.

12:31

So for me that was my job to understand what did happen then? And you know, the victim could be telling the truth, but so could the suspect?

AR: Absolutely.

12:44

IF: But at the same time we did a lot of interviews. In a lot of high-profile cases.

AR: I wanted to become like, you know, because that task force was…

13:02

IF: Very potent, yes.

AR: These were the most famous detectives, at least in Oslo. You know, these were the ones, they were given the task to travel around, live at the hotels and solve all these cases, you know, high profile cases, a lot of media, etcetera. And then, yeah, they brought me along as a recruit, and I was even allowed to sit in and learn from the detective at the time who was regarded as the best interviewer in Norway.

13:34

Our dear colleague and friend Stian Elle.

IF: Yeah, that’s true. He was definitely someone who we admired. He had this really special gift of creating trust and confessions, and you wanted to learn from the best. And you had an opportunity there.

AR: Yeah, I did. I did.

IF: And shortly after, he started at Kripos.

AR: That’s right. His reputation brought him then to the National Homicide Squad in Norway. So he left Oslo Police District. And that became somehow his destiny because in 1995 Birgitte Tengs was murdered on the West Coast of Norway.

14:27

This was a high-profile case in Norway. When a young girl is murdered just outside her home, you know, heavy pressure is put on the police. We had to solve that one. And I was not involved in the investigation because I worked in Oslo. But clearly, the pressure was on, and it was a difficult case. No immediate evidence, no witnesses, and the case remained unsolved for almost two years.

IF: It did.

AR: Yeah. And can you imagine?

IF: And they used profiling. It was some kind of idea. I remember it was a lot of things that were experimented on that case, and as they were building up a pressure.

15:13

And I think without the evidence, they started to profile that it could be this cousin of Birgitte. That could be because he was seen as goofy, and there were some incidents with girls in the school, and he was seen as having some kind of, you know, mildly deviant sexual behaviour. They thought about it, and so they actually brought in a profiler from Stockholm and they did something that is really, really interesting.

15:44

And we’ve seen elsewhere later that not only did he make the profile, but he also made a conclusion that now the guy they addressed it probably was the guilty person.

16:02

And I think that’s something that I think hasn’t been discussed in detail. Why did Stian Elle feel that he could go so far in pressuring this young boy? And I think that the psychological support he, as an interviewer, got from the Swedish psychiatrist…

AR: Ohh, yeah, yeah

IF: …was probably very important. I happen to know 20 years later how important that was, but what we have to tell the listener is that Stian Elle, one of our idols, at least one of my idols as a detective interviewer,

16:48

when he finally got the cousin to confess after interrogations, after interviews, hours after hours, days after days, weeks after weeks, keep in mind the cousin was in full isolation. After at least 180 hours, the cousin confessed, but he retracted his confession very quickly. He said: I never had any memory of it, but he had signed the police statement. Of course, back in those days, we didn’t use recordings.

17:30

But he had signed this odd statement confessing, and he was convicted in the first trial and he didn’t, in all fairness, if I’ve understood it correctly, he didn’t, as I’ve heard it, deny outright. He said if you said I did it, the fact is that if that is the case, I can’t remember it.

AR: Yeah.

17:58

IF: Is that just a myth?

AR: No. Well, the thing is that in the beginning, he said I had nothing to do with it. But then, and this idea, I think, came from the Swedish psychiatrist who, and you’re quite right, he had made a profile, and he said it fits exactly on the cousin. Then the Norwegian police were advised to conduct interrogations, then taken back to the cell in isolation and told him, OK, we want you now to do homework; we want you now to write a script of how you think Birgitte was killed.

18:47

But after weeks and hours and hours and days and weeks, this story, I’ve read it, it’s like a movie, you know, eventually these two stories kind of merge.

IF: Yeah, they did miraculously, and Stian and KRIPOS at that time, they had a method where they kind of claimed that the interior of the suspect didn’t know the details from the case, from the crime scene. I think he used words: there was a Chinese Wall between me and the evidence. So I couldn’t have transferred those words in his mouth.

AR: Yeah. And we know today that not only was that false information from the police, it could be a lie as well. But what we do know from research on false confessions later on, Brandon Garrett in the United States, has looked into false confessions, 40 of them in the first study.

19:58

And what is so interesting about Brandon Garrett’s studies is that he has documented that in these 40 cases of proven false confessions, the judge convicted the innocent based on the false confession due to the fact that the confession contained details that only the perpetrator could have known. And Brandon Garrett did one more thing.

20:36

He managed to document that the police and the prosecution service in 38 of those 40 cases had testified under oath that those details did not come from them. But Brandon Garrett’s studies show, like my studies of the cousin’s confessions, that the details came from the police through leading questions, among other things.

21:04

IF: It’s really interesting because when you think about that, we’re in 2024. Think about how interesting it would have been to have those interviews on tape.

21:20

If we really had them, we probably wouldn’t have been sitting here discussing these things because we would have known. And I think we can probably go even further because I think the Norwegian police at that time didn’t have training. And as you said, we were really proud of Stian Elle when he got this confession, and both you and I called him or texted him. We probably thought that was good police work. But despite that, it was accepted, but we knew deep down that these kinds of pressures, especially when they told him to write a story while he already said he didn’t do it.

22:11

So it was against the legislation and I would at least think that if that was on tape, probably the police would have constrained themself.

AR: Absolutely

IF: One thing is we can document exactly what was said. I mean, probably, there would be an effect that they would be a little bit more afraid of going that far in their manipulation of their leading questions. And it would become evident then that they had transferred the evidence to the suspect and their leading questions and the pressures and expectations.

22:48

But I remember we said that at that time to the legendary defence lawyer Tor Erling Staff. Because when we started the first training in Norway, and we started recording, he said: Well, I hear what you’re saying. I’m kind of happy, but I’m not really, he said. Because what will happen is that you will just move the pressure outside of the interview room. So you will do it anyway. He didn’t trust us at all.

AR: No, he didn’t trust us. And I would say rightly so. You’re absolutely right. Interrogators like myself could not have gone as far in my pressures and in my manipulations and etcetera if there were recordings of the whole thing. That’s undoubtedly, because if the defence lawyers got hold of those tapes and they would, recording is part of the case files.

23:56

Well, and then had brought it to the courts, the courts would not have accepted it as evidence. So we undoubtedly would have saved a lot of errors of justice and a lot of wrongful convictions if we had introduced recording of police interviews. But it has to be mandatory recording. It can’t be the police deciding which interview to record. No, it has to be mandatory recorded. That’s number one. And #2 is that the entire interview has to be recorded.

IF: Absolutely.

24:45

AR: And this famous defence lawyer objected. He was afraid that we would conduct informal talks down in the cell or the staircase up to the interview room etcetera, you know, because they didn’t trust us. So when we introduced recordings in, should we say…

25:10

IF: 2000, 1999?

AR: Yeah, we made sure that we did not conduct any informal talks with the suspects prior to the interview. And in fact, we brought it into our methodology.

IF: To ask them.

AR: Yeah. Have you and I met before? I met you downstairs. You picked me up. OK. What did we talk about? We talked about the football game, Liverpool or whatever. And did we talk about anything else? No, no. OK. And then we introduced, and this is my third point related to how electronically recorded interviews must be: #1 the entire interview #2 – there must be no informal talks outside the formal interview and #3 the fundamental safeguards that all suspects have, must be explained on tape.

26:28

IF: Absolutely.

AR: It is a highly important part of the interview. We call it the formal part.

IF: Well, how were you empowered? How did we actually inform you about why you were here? You’re right. That’s what makes it into an interview, isn’t it? And produce the evidence. Without that, this is just a conversation.

26:57

But I was thinking when we were talking about documentation, because yes, one the legal side of it, but one big part here is that police officers do this despite the fact that they know it’s outright or illegal or at least bending the rules. And that’s what I really think is interesting when we did that in the 90s. We knew that we were bending the rules to get results.

27:35

Very often today, when we travel around, you and I have a fantastic opportunity to go and share our experiences from China to Brazil. You just came back from Suriname in South America. Just before Christmas, I was in Antigua. And what we see is that when we get into heated discussions about how to do it, they actually know that they’re breaching fundamental international conventions on human rights, and particularly the civil and political rights that are Article 14, where it’s explicitly said that you should know why you’re here.

28:23

You should have legal counsel and the possibility to talk to a lawyer.

AR: Absolutely.

IF: And you should have the right to sign it and you have the right not to incriminate yourself. And all detectives know that when we, in heated discussion, remind them of this convention that is from 1966, then all of a sudden, the discussion changes. Well, so we’re gonna play by the rules. Is that what you’re saying? Yes.

28:58

So that’s interesting that an important part of what we today call investigative interviewing is actually following the rules. Yeah, and I think it’s undercommunicated that the rules have been there for a long time.

29:15

The presumption of innocence and the right to silence are long-standing principles that go back to the early Roman Empire. And we’re still reproducing the same mistakes of a society that needs answers in difficult cases. And the police and prosecutions, as agents of that pressure, directed that pressure on that suspect because now we need someone to convict. I think you’re probably right about it a lot in your PhD thesis. It’s what we can call a noble cause corruption. Because you think that you actually convicted the right guy.

30:09

AR: Yes, I mean I’ve been an expert witness before the Norwegian courts quite a few times in these very difficult cases. So you’ve been in a couple of them yourself, and I’ve not come across one case in which my colleagues or the police made sure that an innocent man was convicted. They believed they had the right man. They convinced themselves. I mean, if you look back to the old techniques, they were written in 1987 in Norway. This was the first article written on police interviewing in 1987 by two highly renowned detectives and leaders within the Norwegian police.

31:01

And they actually wrote that when you have a suspect in front of you, you have to convince yourself that he is the guilty one. You must never lose that inner confidence that he is the perpetrator. That’s how we were taught to motivate ourselves. It was confession-driven.

IF: It was seen as a weakness to think that someone may be innocent. Yeah, that’s not your job. No, leave that to himself or the defence lawyer or someone else. But it’s not our job. You’re not focused enough.

AR: And as you said, this was not the way to operationalise the presumption of innocence.

31:50

But it was not before this kind of attitude or culture, confession culture, they called it in the UK, the cuff culture. It was not before it had created wrongful convictions after wrongful convictions in the United Kingdom, in which the government in the UK, said that enough is enough and ordered mandatory recordings of all interviews of suspects back in 1984.

32:30

IF: Yep. The law came in 84 and then took a couple of years to actually get it done. So I think 86 was when it actually commenced during the interview recordings.

AR: Right. And then interesting things started to happen.

IF: Just say what would have happened if we had this on tape all of a sudden? Yeah, they did, didn’t they?

AR: They did. This also allowed researchers to look, listen to and give advice and start developing methodology, an alternative. Because if you take away a tool from a practitioner, in our case, that tool was manipulation; in many countries, that tool is still torture, physical torture, yes. Now if you take away a tool from a practitioner, you have to provide him or her with an alternative, an alternative they find applicable that they can use to solve crime. And that’s the paradigm shift started in the UK back in the early 1990s.

IF: You had this legendary report.

33:45

We have to say it was actually ordered by the Home Office. It was John Baldwin who got the exclusive permission to actually look into 400 audio-taped interviews, he didn’t slaughter them, but he said there is absolutely no sign of any skill here. And some of the people who are regarded as the best are probably the most dangerous and say they’re playing with fire. And what these people need is not advanced psychology.

34:23

They said they need basic social and communication skills. I think it’s almost word by word what he said. It’s such an interesting testimony. You should think that police officers had to talk to people as a profession.

AR: Absolutely. That started what we today know as investigative interviewing, research-based interviewing techniques founded in both human rights and social science about communication skills, how human memory works, and how you know all this. But it also in the UK needed agents of change from within the police to really, should we say, get things going and change the culture?

IF: Yeah. You couldn’t kind of accuse the place from the outside. Of course, defence lawyers did.

35:24

That was more or less seen as normal, but at that time, you know, you had Baldwin’s report 1992, but the same year or was it the year after Eric Shepherd was one of the guys that also inspired you and me and we started to read texts when we later understood there are actually text and literature and research on this. I think that’s probably one of the texts that was most interesting because he called it an ethical interview. He has brought in a very different dimension: ethics.

36:03

He was the one who said there is a cuff culture, meaning that you are taking with you that order and control and the use of force that the police are allowed to use if necessary in the streets. But when you’re a detective, that’s no longer your job. You are here purely to investigate with an open mind. And you shouldn’t use the same kind of controlled measures that you think you’re entitled to just because you’re a cop. And I think they’ve just messed it up.

36:32

And I think also Eric who, at least as far as I can see in the literature, brought in general communication skills. How should this be done then? What are the basics of interpersonal communication and he kind of opened up those doors that we’re still exploring.

AR: Absolutely. He wrote the article Ethical Interviewing. It was a powerful article. It was highly critical towards the police. But it was so powerful that when I came back from my studies in the UK and then was given the task to develop and bring this knowledge from the UK about the research and investigative interviewing.

37:24

I told my bosses, my colleagues here in Norway, we need to read something, you know, we have to, we can’t only have a course. We have to have some literature. But there was nothing in Norwegian. But then I asked if I could get actually a month or so off duty to just to translate Eric Shepherd’s Ethical interviewing.

37:55

Because I thought that that was the most important text in order to change the mindset. Because that’s what we’re talking about. We need to change our mindset.

IF: The change of the mindset. And what is doing this in the legal, scientifically based way? What is it really? And then I remember also you brought another document and that was the trainers manual from Merseyside.

38:23

How to train investigative interviewing that was a very early manual. I think it was already from 1995.

AR: Yeah, 94 I think in Merseyside Police.

IF: Yeah. So then, and it’s interesting to think about it now, Ray Bull, of course, he’s an absolute legend in this game.

38:46

And we can both be lucky enough to regard him as a dear friend.

AR: Yes, absolutely, certainly one of the pioneers. And we already mentioned Eric Shepherd, and then, of course, you had Tom Williamson, another agent of change, agents of change from within the police.

IF: Tom Williamson was on a high level. He was a high-ranking officer. Yeah, already early on, he went all the way to commander and did training, did academic studies just like we did and realised the need for change.

39:17

And he was probably brave enough to verbalise it. And I remember when we were, you and me, we were starting to criticise or at least verbalise the need for change. You at Oslo Police, me at KRIPOS. Just knowing that a guy like Tom Williamson had just done that a couple of years back and 10 years back he went exactly the same path.

39:49

It was so inspirational.

AR: Absolutely.

IF: And motivational. We felt a little bit more safe.

AR: It gave us confidence. It gave us confidence when the UK had, you know, changed its entire police force and introduced mandatory recording of all suspects interviews. And it gave us confidence that that was the right way forward.

IF: Recording, training all detectives or actually all police officers were trained.

40:19

Exactly the same fundamental methods, not too advanced, no, but enough to take you a long way. Fundamental skills you have to practise and practise again, and it’s not advanced psychology. The majority of officers need those practical skills.

40:43

I remember one of the most rewarding moments was in 2006 when we were actually invited to the first world conference on interviewing in Europe where we were invited to speak. That was a big moment. And Tom Williamson was the organiser.

AR: Yeah, he was.

IF: And meeting him for you and me was a big thing. Yeah, at least it was for me.

AR: Of course, of course. And for some reason, probably the paper that we had handed in, describing the talk we were going to hold, we were actually put on the main stage, the huge auditorium at the university.

41:30

I was so nervous.

IF: And in English, we both had done our masters in England at the time, but still giving a lecture to such an audience. And on top of that, after the lecture, he asked us to do a book chapter in his coming book.

AR: Tom Williamson came almost running towards us after the presentation that we had given and, and said you guys have to take part in the book and we did.

42:04

And today that paradigm shift is now thanks to the cooperation, I would definitely say between the Norwegian Police and the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, because at a certain point in our career, we got engaged with the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights because they have been travelling around the world telling the police what not to do. Don’t do this, don’t do that.

42:36

If you do that, you will be punished. But I think one of their researchers listened to our lectures here in Norway and then they realised that this is the alternative. This is how to actually do it. And that’s 15 years ago. And we haven’t been home since. And the testimony that we can bring from Norway that this is the way forward. Because if you talk to Norwegian police officers today, police officers had experience before investigative interviewing and electronic recording of the entire interview and after the introduction of it.

43:20

And ask them today, what do you think? Because there were colleagues that were sceptical, of course, not only to the new methodology, but certainly also to recording: Why should we record this? Can’t we trust the police anymore, etcetera, etcetera?

IF: It was seen as the end of interviews.

AR: Yeah, it was. It was by some, definitely by many. But when you ask police officers today, none of them and I feel quite confident, none of them wants to go back to the old system without recording. You remember how it was to stand in the big trials in the courts as one of the main witnesses for the prosecution and have nothing but a written paper to back up your argument. Today testifying in court with electronic recording of the entire session is a different world.

44:29

And, of course, you have to be professional.

IF: It’s a daylight test. You know, the way you do your job and it makes you probably less reluctant to actually prepare what you’re doing. Plan it, and do it in the best way as you actually can because you know that one day, some people might actually look into this.

AR: And the other thing is that there were colleagues, police officers who were sceptical, those who were against interviewing, they said that, as you said, it was seen as the end of interviewing. And one of the arguments or beliefs was that the suspect is never going to talk to us now. We’re never going to get any confessions now with the microphones and the cameras, etcetera. They will hamper the communication. But it didn’t.

IF: Four or five years after we started doing this, or probably even quicker, the prosecutors came and said, hey, guys, you’re getting too much information. So they kind of had to stop the wave of information hitting them.

45:49

And rightly so, because we were documenting. All of a sudden, we understood how effective this tool was. And how much information there’s actually there and how much information we have stopped while using the close question, the confession focus and typing as you go. But why did Tom Williamson really want us to do that lecture? And why did he want us to do that book chapter? Because there was also something that we brought along that the Peace model didn’t have. It was a different way of dealing with evidence evaluation.

46:35

Because we were actually evaluating evidence in a very different way than our colleagues and ourselves indeed had done in the past. So instead of just looking for things that confirmed the guilt, we were now actively, and that’s the model we picked up in Sweden. We later found out that it stems from a professor in law who’s seen how the Supreme Court in Sweden actually argue when they say that this guy should be acquitted or not. So what does the expression mean beyond a reasonable doubt? And he said it means that when you have to test whether there are any other stories or hypotheses that can explain the same evidence.

47:25

And if there aren’t, and if you now can rule them out, then you might convict. But if there are any other stories or ideas around how this evidence might have arisen, then there is doubt, and the defendant should be acquitted.

AR: Absolutely.

IF: So that’s the paradigm shift. I think also that we were lucky enough to bring to England, at least at that time. Over time you and me, we’re not just dealing with interviews anymore.

48:06

It’s more about how to think like a detective and how to evaluate evidence. So that’s the journey we’ve been lucky enough to not only be passengers, we’ve been in the front seat and rightly so with a lot of other very, very good colleagues from both Oslo Police and KRIPOS and different passes in the Norwegian police. We probably have changed much more than just interviewing.

AR: Ohh yes, absolutely. We changed the mindset of the detectives, and of course, later on, I did my PhD in errors of justice. And identifying what was the underlying cause of all these errors of justice. Well, you know, these wrongful convictions. It took me 2-3 years into the reading of the literature. Then I realised it was due to cognitive biases. It was tunnel vision. It was confirmation bias. But I was finished with my PhD.

49:08

So that was my conclusion. And then you started your PhD and started right there and did your PhD on decision-making. But it started with interviewing, you know, going from confession orientated, which is confirmative, which is very dangerous. I mean, and as you with the PhD in decision making, you know, what does that do to your methodology and your thinking and evaluation of evidence? If your mindset is to confirm your hypothesis?

49:39

IF: And it’s interesting though, that I think we would probably put down the landing gear now for this conversation because we’re arriving at least to the first milestone there. We can say that. That’s why it’s called investigative interviewing. Your job is to investigate. Find your information. You can actually leave it to someone else to conclude. That has never been your job as an officer and never will be.

AR: So research and human rights go hand in hand.

50:09

And then you have technology, as we’ve also mentioned, and what an exciting future we’re headed towards. I mean, one thing is the electronic recording of the entire session and doing it safely, etcetera. It should be mandatory all over the world and I’m quite sure it will at a certain point. But then you have speech-to-text and accurate summaries.

50:40

IF: No, it’s exciting, but hopefully, it will be taken in. As you said, you found towards the end of your PhD that the common mistake here is that we’re simplifying it. We’re just taking in one solution. It’s caused by a cognitive function that just boils down to what I can cope with. Now, what we are recommending is to cope with complexity.

51:10

We take in all the possible explanations. And we’re supposed to check that against all possible evidence. So, of course, that level of complexity requires something more than the human brain. Then we do need tools that can, as you said, gather exactly all the information documented but also do cross-checking for us, maybe come up with some links. In that case, over there, there was someone with the same car, or they had a similar modus operandi.

51:46

They did it the same way… Is that something you should track? Give you the leads that help you handle this complexity, and probably break it down so that you can chunk it into evidence topics. And so I think that where we are now, we know what to do, but we need technological help, how to do it better where our brains can’t cope with it. We need a tool not to make conclusions for us but to help us make better decisions.

52:16

AR: Yes, absolutely. We just started, and the direction is pointed towards scientific research and technological development. We’re just at the beginning. Sometimes, we talk about medicine. I mean, it’s not that long ago it was dangerous to be at a hospital, you know, because the poor doctors didn’t have methodology or equipment or knowledge. And that’s where the diseases were, you know, and look at today, how have they advanced through science, through methodology.

53:11

IF: interpretation of evidence.

AR: And of course, electronic devices that can help you do your job, document and do it right.

IF: And knowledge sharing, not to mention one of the articles we’ve written: If the police knew what the police know, we would have solved almost all the cases. So it will be interesting to see where this will lead in the future.

AR: Absolutely.

IF: But that is another episode.

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June 24, 2024