While scanning through some online communities of law enforcement officers I came upon a discussion about taking statements from people, specifically if the officers had the individuals write out their own statements or if the officer wrote it out for them. I was surprised at some of the responses, to say the least.

One response was, "I take the statement, I write the statement (well, type it) and they sign the statement. I am sure to write it using their words but by writing it myself it goes in chronological order and I am sure to cover all the points required. This is standard operating procedure over here." This is often the SOP for many police officers, but unfortunately it is not the best practice. There may be a reason why the individual did not make the account in a chronological order. Often, what is important to the individual goes down on paper first. If we write the statement in the order we think it should go, we can lose potentially valuable information and insight. Also, by trying to get "all the points required" is a different focus than getting all the information the individual has, and assess what's important to him/her.

Another response was, "I usually do a question and answer which I type out, then, while I start on the other paperwork, I give the subject a legal pad and get him to write out a statement in his own words." We are getting better by having the subject write out their own statement in their own words, but by doing a question and answer before taking the statement you will inevitably influence the content of the statement. In effect, it will not be "in his own words" as hoped, but it will be a product, or by-product, of the question and answer session beforehand.

One officer stated, "I always write (or even better, type) statements [sic] myself. I hate audio-taped statements. Not only do they take me twice as long to transcribe as they would have to type in the first place, but due to mumbling, phones ringing, radios squawking [sic], people walking through, prisoners yelling etc. there's always sections of the tape that can't be made out. I'll admit though, warned statements done by hand suck too, I try to avoid that." My main question here is, "Where are you conducting your interviews?" There should be privacy, which means no phones, no radios squawking, no prisoners yelling, nobody walking through.

Although there were a couple responses within that discussion group that were good, such as "having the individual write out their statement and ask questions to clarify the statement", or "audio and/or video tape all statements", etc, there were significantly more practices that were being employed that have been shown to be ineffective, to say the very least.

The best practice for obtaining a written statement is to conduct the interview in a private setting free from distractions and time limitations. Establish rapport with the individual and simply ask them to "Please write down everything that happened..." From that starting point we obtain their pure version account of the incident which we can asses and ask clarifying question about based upon the information they provided, by using open and probing questions. By doing this we obtain more accurate information from the individual and we are in a better position to assess the veracity as well.

One of the fundamental principles with investigative statement analysis is that we ask people open-ended questions to elicit a free narrative account from them. When we do this, the individual has the ability, and in essence the obligation, to tell us everything that happened and everything they feel is important for us to know about a particular event or time period. If they leave out relevant information, what does that potentially say about their account? For instance, we had a mother make a complaint that she believed that her 2-year-old daughter was being sexually abused by her estranged husband who had visitation with her every other weekend. She came in to the station to make a formal complaint and provided a 6-page hand written statement. Not ONE WORD in her 6 pages was about possible sexual abuse of her daughter…nothing! It was all about her ex-husband, how bad he was, he was this and he was that. When the detective mentioned to her that the statement does not contain anything about the suspected abuse of her daughter that she came in to make, her response was, “Oh, I forgot that part.” How can you forget the main issue? How can a mother forget that her 2 year old daughter may be the victim of sexual abuse? With investigative follow-up between our agency and the Department of Children and Families, we were able to prove that this was a false claim, something we later found out she had done prior as well. By applying these techniques you will gain a lot of insight into the individual, their thought process and what is important to them. What’s important to them should be what enters their statement, so what they leave OUT of their statements may provide even greater insight than what they put into their statements! It is important to identify and evaluate what people say and don’t say during interviews and interrogations, and what people write and don’t write within their written statements. What people want to keep hidden from you will be a major motivation and force that influences what they DO tell you. This will be reflected within their language and writing to the well-trained investigator!

Highlights of some upcoming police training including courses in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire and Florida: 

• September 5-7, 2012: Darien Police Department, Darien, CT. "Tactical Interviewing & Detecting Deception"
  • http://www.truthsleuth.com/training/details/11-tactical-interviewing-and-detecting-deception.html
• September 12-14, 2012: IPTM, Jacksonville, FL. "Cognitive Iterviewing" 
  • http://www.truthsleuth.com/training/details/4-cognitive-interviewing.html
• September 17-19, 2012: IPTM, Jacksonville, FL. "Statement Analysis; Truth through what they S.A.I.D." 
  • http://www.truthsleuth.com/training/details/8-investigative-statement-analysis-truth-through-what-they-said.html
• September 24-26, 2012: Paladin Center, Carmel, NY. "Tactical Interviewing & Detecting Deception"
  • http://www.truthsleuth.com/training/details/10-tactical-interviewing-a-detecting-deception.html
• October 3-5, 2012: Manchester Police Department, Manchester, NH. "Statement Analysis; Truth through what they S.A.I.D."
  • http://www.truthsleuth.com/training/details/12-investigative-statement-analysis-truth-through-what-they-said.html

How much information is lost, or at least not "accessed", when a victim or witness of a crime is interviewed by the police? My guess is LOTS! After more than 22 years of law enforcement experience as a Detective in Major Crime and also a Detective Sergeant in Major Crime as well as within Internal Affairs, I have seen many instances where people are interviewed and only a minimal amount of information is obtained.

Sometimes it may be, dare I say...laziness, but frequently it may just be that the investigators were asking the wrong questions, or the wrong TYPE of questions to actually stimulate the individual memory and help guide them to provide further, accurate detail.

One of the courses we teach through LIES, LLC is Cognitive Interviewing. This method of investigative interviewing draws on years of research in cognitive psychology and human memory function and has been subjected to research and application within the field of law enforcement throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and many other parts of the world, and has been shown to be very effective at obtaining and increasing accurate information from victims and witnesses. 

If you have not had training in Cognitive Interviewing, you will never know the information you are missing during your investigations, and as we all know, even the slightest asset in our favor can make ALL the difference in successfully closing cases!