Abstract
Correctional workers spend a large portion of their time conducting interviews with offenders, victims, police officers, and many other people involved in some way with offenders’ activities. During the course of their work, correctional workers may also be required to interrogate offenders. Thus, this chapter presents the basic principles of effective interviewing and interrogating. The chapter begins with a discussion of the PEACE model of interviewing, which explains the interview process from beginning to end. Next, the techniques of effective interviewing are presented, including active listening, alertness, questioning and probing, resisting temptations to interrupt, and keeping the offender in the foreground. We also discuss techniques to respond to offenders’ disclosure. Next, we discuss how to interview victims (as opposed to offenders) and the factors that should be considered when interviewing this population. We then discuss interrogating offenders, including the differences between interviewing and interrogation, qualities of effective interrogators, types of questions to ask, and effective strategies to obtain information from reluctant offenders. The chapter concludes with an exercise in interviewing and listening. The main purpose of this interview exercise is to develop your ability to listen actively.
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Walsh, A., Wells, J., Gann, S.M. (2020). Interviewing and Interrogating. In: Correctional Assessment, Casework, and Counseling. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55226-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55226-8_3
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