Science-Based Interviewing: The Impact of Police Training

We’ve all seen the movies in which a suspect is being interviewed by a bad cop and a good cop.  The detectives badger or con the suspect to a point of offering a false confession just to stop the process.  In the real world it is believed that false confessions make up 13% of wrongful convictions.  In the realm of evidence-based policing a relatively new approach to conducting suspect interviews is something called science-based interrogations.  The research into science-based interrogation is limited but growing.  An important component of using a science-based approach to interrogations is the training provided to those police officers and detectives who will use this tool.  Joining the podcast today is Dr. Melissa Russano who will be discussing two studies examining the impact of training on the use of science-based interrogation (SBI) methods.  Melissa is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Roger Williams University.  She holds a Ph.D. in Legal Psychology, and she teaches courses in Research Methods, legal psychology, and investigative interviewing.  You can contact Dr. Russano at mrussano@rwu.edu if you would like to further discuss her research, which includes:

Russano, M. B., Meissner, C. A., Atkinson, D. J., Brandon, S. E., Wells, S., Kleinman, S. M., & Jones, M. S. (2024). Evaluating the effectiveness of a 5-day training on science-based methods of interrogation with US federal, state, and local law enforcement investigators. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 30(2), 105.

Russano, M. B., Meissner, C. A., Jones, M. S., Rothweiler, J. N., Taylor, P. J., Cory, C., & Brandon, S. E. (2025). Evaluating the effectiveness of a practitioner‐designed science‐based interviewing and interrogation course: A collaborative training and research effort. Legal and Criminological Psychology.

Main Topics

• These studies take lab-based research and apply them in the policing field.
• SBI has multiple components, and each can improve the effectiveness of gaining cooperation and information from suspect, witnesses, and victims. 
• Applying the traditional the accusatorial model is actually counterproductive.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome to the police and service training podcast. This podcast is dedicated to providing research evidence to street-level police officers and command staff of lawyers. The program is intended to help the police and law enforcement community create better programs, understand challenging policies, and dispel the myths of police officer behavior. I'm your host, Scott Phillips. We've all seen the movies in which a suspect is being interviewed by a bad cop and a good cop. Or the detectives will handcuff the suspect to a table and then badger or con the guy to the point where saying, I did it, we'll stop the process. The good thing about the movies is that we all know the guy did it, so we don't feel the least bit bad about what the cops are doing. But in the real world, the good cop-bad cop approach can lead to false confessions, and it is believed that false confessions make up approximately 13% of wrongful convictions. In the realm of evidence-based policing, a relatively new approach to conducting suspect interviews is something called science-based interrogations. The issue is not yet as widespread as hotspot policing or focused deterrence, but the research evidence into science-based interrogations is growing. An important component of using a science-based approach to interrogations is the training provided to those police officers and detectives who will use this tool. Joining me on the podcast today is Dr. Melissa Rosano, and we're going to discuss her article titled, and this is a long title, Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Five-Day Training on Science-Based Methods of Interrogation with U.S., federal, state, and local law enforcement investigators. Melissa is a professor of criminal justice at Roger Williams University. She holds a PhD in legal psychology, and she teaches courses in research methods, legal psychology, and investigative interviewing. Thanks for joining the podcast, Melissa.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Thank you for having me. So my entry into this general field was back when I was in graduate school. And I was drawn into it the way that I think many researchers were drawn into it, which was to be intrigued by the idea of a false confession and why anyone would ever confess to a crime they didn't commit. And I went, um, my first exposure to that was um a talk that I attended by Dr. Saul Casson, who is a giant in the field um of false confession research. And um I I, as a as a meek graduate student, went up and spoke to him after um his talk and to tell him how much I enjoyed it and how interesting I thought it was. And he very graciously offered to meet with me for coffee and chat some more. Um, and that led to um an early collaboration between he and I. And I was sort of off to the races into the field of interrogations and confessions. And then I became interested really in understanding not only why people falsely confessed, but also how we could elicit true confessions in an ethical and reliable way. And a lot of the research at that point, and we're talking about um uh the early 2000s at this point, um, was really focused on false confessions. And I thought to myself, well, if I'm a police officer, being told what not to do without solutions of what to do didn't seem like a very effective strategy in convincing people to change practice.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

And so I wanted to be able to really offer up solutions as opposed to just critiques um and criticism. And so that started me down the path of research on not only what not to do, but how to do it better, um, which eventually led to science-based interviewing research.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Right. That's interesting. Turning the turning the issue kind of on its side, don't just complain about it. What are you going to do about it? So, okay, now you you you did a this this conversation, uh, this research is about the training. So, why is the issue of training for science-based interrogation, why is this area of interest or importance to the police?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

So, um, as science-based interviewing has developed, a model has developed, um, we've taken what we learned in the laboratory, and we need to be able to give that away to the practitioners. So essentially, what we've learned from the re in the research community, it's only useful if researcher, if researchers can communicate that information to practitioners, and they are then able to employ the techniques that we know lead to increased cooperation and information gain and ultimately confessions. And so the challenge of how do we take what we know from the research lab into the field is the core issue of training. Um, and what we've learned from a series of studies now is that we can effectively train science-based interviewing and interrogation. And when investigators use those techniques that they learn during training, it improves um their outcomes in the field.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Okay, very good. Now, as I hinted in the introduction, false confessions can be a problem. And when I read the article, the information that you've written in the past in other articles as well, uh, this seems to have been a problem with um interrogation methods from September 11th. Uh, can you give us the origin story of science-based interrogations?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Sure. So, um, first let me say that research on interrogations and confessions and related areas have been going on for more than 100 years. However, there was an inflection point that happened after 9-11 where it um was disclosed that the United States was engaging in interrogation techniques that involved the use of torture and other um non-evidence-based techniques, to put it mildly. And President Obama created a, ultimately created an organization called the High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or the HIG for short, which was an interagency organization made up of the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And the goal of that agency was to make sure that the US government was using evidence-based approaches when it came to interrogating suspects. And as a part of that, it had an operational side, but it also developed a research unit that then funded many, many researchers, myself included, to conduct research on um topics related to science-based interviewing. And um as that that really was an inflection point because it provided a lot of funding that didn't otherwise exist to um to really develop this field of science-based interviewing that we see now today.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Okay, now your paper examines um science-based interrogation training models. And can you can you tell us about this?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Sure. Um, so I've really been involved in two major um training studies at this point. And what they both have in common is a training course was developed where it was a collaboration between practitioners and researchers to take what we knew about science-based interviewing and interrogation, package it together into a week-long course, deliver that to investigators, and then examine the effectiveness of that training by looking at pre- and post-training real-world suspect interviews. So these are investigators out in the field conducting their interrogations. We collected recordings from them before and after they were trained with science-based interviewing and interrogation. And then we looked to see if the training changed their practice. In other words, did they start to use the science-based approaches more? And also did the use of those science-based techniques lead to increased cooperation, decreased resistance, and information gain, and ultimately confessions amongst these um real-world suspects.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Can you tell us about a few of the uh the nuts and bolts like the um rapport building and uh cognitive interviewing?

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Sure. So science-based interrogation involves some key components, right? So the first would be um the use of uh genuine and effective rapport building to developed trust. Uh the second is the use of productive questioning. So these are things like using open-ended questions and what we call funnels, where we start um uh using open-ended questions and getting more specific with appropriate direct questions as needed. It includes things like active listening skills and training those, because even though we we toss the words rapport and active listening around a lot, um, those are important skill sets that people don't necessarily intuitively have on their own. So you actually do need to train them. We look at what are called cognitive interview approaches, which has to do with leveraging principles of memory and um social dynamics and communication. It's a we have a very long history and research base on cognitive interviewing and applying those principles. Uh, it also includes training on how to appropriately disclose evidence in a way that will maximize the likelihood of um overcoming resistance and um and disclosure, ultimately disclosure, and generally overcoming resistance, even more generally, is a topic we cover. Um, so just to name a few of the components. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, it's like uh like I mentioned in the intro with television shows, you've got these people, you know, the the the law and order people, you know, have these questions, all these kinds of, you know, they're throwing this their their weight around and making these accusations and they have absolutely no evidence. And then somebody says something and they hit this blank stare like, oh crap, I didn't realize that you were at the you know at the mall or something like that. So yeah, I've I've seen other shows where which actually did um use uh an approach that was, okay, here's what we have. Now here's this next thing, now here, and which which addresses you know their resistance to, oh, I was at the mall. Well, here's you know, we pinged your phone at you know at the different at at the grocery store. Uh anyway, so I'm getting off topic for a little too much here. But so how did you do your study? Interviews, collected data, how many people, those kinds of things, and basically a high high level because I know listeners find it kind of boring to listen to conversations about how methods are done and statistics.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

No worries. Um, I'm actually going to tell you, uh I mentioned two studies. I'm gonna tell you about the most recent one that is hot off the presses because I think it'll be of most interest to your audience. So in this study, what we did is um, in collaboration with an active law enforcement practitioner, we designed a course where it was designed for local and state law enforcement, and which included a week-long course, which included the topics that we talked about, and then some. And we had, I believe, I'd have to look up how many investigators? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 49, 49, maybe 50 investigators across um three different local law enforcement departments. And we had them submit pre- and post-training suspect interviews that we had certain criteria that had to be met. They were randomly selected from the interviews that that fit our inclusion criteria. And they participated in this week-long course that involved it being co-taught by the active law enforcement practitioner who was the lead instructor, but then supported by researchers in the field. And we think that practitioner research or collaboration is very important because the practitioner can deliver the material to um their peers in a way that makes it understandable and provide examples that are relevant to local law enforcement. And then the researcher is there to provide the science um in a way that is accessible to the students.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Kind of like what we're trying to do here.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Kind of like what we're trying to do here, exactly. And then not only do we use obviously some lecture, but really focused on demonstrations and then hands-on activities. So um we would do lecture, we would explain the concept, and then we would demonstrate the concept, and then they would practice the concept. And the week culminated in a day-long suspect interviewing exercise that was very realistic in the sense that the people they were interviewing, interrogating had actually engaged in the behavior, the criminal behavior.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

And it wasn't just role-playing. So they had had they had had the actual experience that they were then being questioned about, and they were able to practice all these skills that they had learned throughout the week. And yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

No, no, go ahead, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Oh, so then um, after the week-long training, we then collected those post-interviews between three and nine months post-training. Okay. And then what we did was we take all of those interviews, the pre and the post-training interviews, we had them transcribed into transcripts. And then we had our coders, which are basically our scorers, our raiders who had been trained on how to code for various science-based techniques, but also more traditional methods. So we looked at not only their use of the science-based techniques, but accusatorial methods that are sort of the bread and butter of local law enforcement and federal law enforcement in this country. And we wanted to see whether the frequency changed, right? So, did they increase the use of the science-based approaches? Did they decrease their use of the accusatorial approaches post-training? And then we also did something called, I don't want to bore your listeners, a path analysis, a path model that allows us to look at how all of these things interacted. So essentially, did the science-based approaches increase after training, but also did the use of those science-based approaches then lead to decreased resistance, increased cooperation, and again, information gain and confession.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Right. That's uh uh path analysis is one of those things I've mentioned on this on this podcast in the past that because it's uh audio, path analysis is something you draw on a board, and we can't we can't do that. But it's very helpful for making connections between uh from A to Z and what's going on in between. Okay, so you looked at a couple of different outcome measures. You you you gave these people a lot of you know training, a lot of time between the the pre and the post. What were your findings? Did this benefit? Did the training benefit in those different areas?

SPEAKER_00 15:30

It did. So across, again, these two studies, what we found is that when we train investigators in science-based methods, it increases their use of those science-based methods. So exactly what we want to see. Now, if you want to get into the nitty-gritty of it, you know, it in we had significant effects on some measures, but not others. But for the purpose of an overview here, what we see is an increased use of things like productive questioning and cognitive interview approaches, which help elicit more information from people. In the most recent study, we looked at those evidence disclosure techniques that I mentioned, and we saw an increased use of evidence disclosure techniques. Um, although it was marginally significant, we're still seeing it move in the right direction. And then importantly, when we look at that path model, what we see is increased use of the science-based approaches leads to increased cooperation, decreased resistance, and increase and information gain.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Which is exactly, which is exactly what you're looking for. This is this is like anything else at the street level, a police officer being trained to do hotspot policing. They go there, they get out, they walk around, they talk to people. In the long run, what kind of conversations are they having? In the longer run, you want to find out is that decreasing crime, which is your goal? And so this is this is great news. I'm I'm sorry, keep going.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

Yeah, so I was just gonna add, um, in the the second study that we just published, we also see and what we call an indirect effect. So training increases, cooperation, and information disclosed disclosure. And we also saw an increase in confessions and admissions as well. So for those who are really focused on the interrogation side of things, we are seeing an effect on that ultimate outcome. But it's also really important to, I think one of the things we stress in science-based interviewing is that interviewing and interrogation is a bit of a uh it's it's a name game, right? This is about talking to people and getting information. And all of the techniques that we train are relevant for suspects, but also witnesses and victims. You know, there's an extra layer for suspects, but even witnesses and victims are resistant sometimes, right? For a variety of reasons. They may be protecting someone, they may be reluctant to talk about something that happened. And so um good science-based interviewing applies to many different contexts, and it's it's not just suspect-focused.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Okay, so you did the training, the results are in the direction you want them to be. And I know you said something about marginally significant, but marginally significant is still telling us something that is is is in this case good. What are two or three implications for policing? Now, again, you said that this second study was done in a smaller agency. Right, can you say roughly how how big? 50 officers, 100 officers?

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Oh, that's a good question. And I don't have the answer to it. Um But it wasn't it wasn't it was not huge.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

It wasn't like New York or Boston or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

It wasn't New York or Boston, but a a good size, probably uh medium-sized local law enforcement. There were three different departments, actually.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Oh, okay, very good. Yeah. But what what were some of the implications and two or three for for those agencies that are listening to this?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yeah, I think this is this is what I've learned in my my experience with training uh law enforcement. First is oftentimes the officers that come to the class, they were there for two reasons. One, they're actually really excited about being there and they're excited about learning new skills, or two, they've been voluntold to be there and they're they're a little resistant themselves, right? But what I learned by the end of these trainings is that once you show police officers that how these techniques work to their advantage, right? Because ultimately police want more cooperation, less resistance, and more information disclosure, they become believers.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

It's it's the what's what's in it for me.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Absolutely, right? And and the goal is to get reliable information from people to help you solve cases. And science-based interviewing does that. And what the implication for law enforcement, I think, especially administration from an administrative perspective, is the accusatorial model is actually counterproductive. So one thing I didn't mention in our results is we find that the use of those accusatorial techniques that are more standard actually increases resistance and decreases cooperation. So they're counterproductive in many, many ways, not setting aside the issue of the reliability of the information. And so these techniques will help your officers get more cooperation and get more information that we can rely upon. And that is the way that things are moving. It's slow because change in law enforcement is slow, but the tides are turning to a more science-based approach. And I would encourage police departments to be on the forefront of that.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Now we have a few minutes, and so I'm just wondering if it is there any research on just the general views of police officers to or towards this before training. Okay, so we ask officers about community policing, you know, 20, 30 years ago, then recently we've asked asked them about uh evidence-based policing, hotspot policing, just their views, ask them their views of hot of cameras. Is there any any research that asks the officers their views of this technique? And I'm not trying to put you on the spot because if there's not, if there's not, what that does is maybe it opens up the door to somebody to say, okay, we need to just get a baseline of what officers know about this so that we we could understand what might be source sources of resistance if we're going to be putting this into our agency.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

Yeah, so I I would say from a data perspective, I know that when we conduct training programs, we will do a pre-questionnaire and a post-questionnaire so we can look at their knowledge base. Um, and what we find is for the most part, they don't have a lot of in-depth knowledge of science-based training. Now, if I ask, if I ask, you know, do you develop rapport? Almost every investigator is going to say yes. Oh, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Um I'm a mensch.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

But but you would be surprised um when we're teaching rapport, actual concrete, well, how do you do it? What are the skills? It's not just let's chit-chat for a few minutes until the person feels comfortable. They they come to realize very quickly that it's actually a lot more complicated. Um, and certainly in our post-training um evaluations of the course, we see an increase in knowledge and positivity towards the approach. And I think, again, anecdotally, I will say is investigators tend to love it because they see very quickly how we can put it to use. And the best way to get buy-in is to have them experience it themselves. So we have them be interviewed with the techniques. And when they try, when they're experiencing the techniques as the person in the chair, okay, that's often when we'll see sort of the light bulb moment go off.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

Okay, this is great information. Is there anything that that we missed that you might might want to mention?

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Um no, I will just say this. I get a lot of inquiries about um how people can get science-based interviewing training. And I I think this is the biggest gap right now because um there are people out there that are doing it. And if you Google science-based interviewing, you will see lots of things popping up. And law enforcement needs to be really critical consumers because anybody can label their training science-based. But whether it is actually science-based and whether it's been validated are two very different things. So be wary of just a label. Really dig deep. Um, how did this training get developed? Are there scientists or researchers involved in the training, right? What is the origin story of the training before you start paying for it?

SPEAKER_01 23:13

There you go. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Because the reality is there's no governing board of science-based interviewing. Um, and unfortunately, there are people out there that are selling science-based interviewing that are truly not science-based. So ask lots of questions, um, make connections. And um, frankly, what we need are more partners with law enforcement. So there are researchers who are looking to develop relationships and partnership partnerships with law enforcement communities that um are interested in this. And ultimately, we want to we want to conduct research that is useful to them. So don't be afraid of us. Um, collaboration is key because you know, we're really here to try and improve and help practice and and field operations.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Right, which is the the the point of this podcast. Melissa, this has been some fascinating information, and I'm really glad that uh I'm gonna I'm gonna add the uh the title, I'll get the title of this that that most most recent article that you were you were mentioning, and I'll include that in the show notes because and maybe even some contact information for you because whether they want to partner with you to do research in their agency or you get training in this this has been really helpful. I I appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

I I was a pleasure. Um, and um I'm certainly happy to to chat some more um or to have people you know reach out over email.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

Very good. Thanks, Melissa. I appreciate your time. You have a great day.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Thank you.