HUMAN FACTORS

Human factors affect your success in stimulating an interviewee to talk, and influence the accuracy or truthfulness of the information you secure from the interviewee. You should evaluate each interviewee and the information furnished, attempting to understand the interviewee's motivations, fears, and mental makeup. You should use your understanding of the interviewee to gain useful information.

In selecting a technique of interview or interrogation, you should consider perception or memory, prejudice, reluctance to talk, and personality conflicts.

Perception and Memory

The validity of the information divulged during an interview or an interrogation is influenced by the interviewee's ability to perceive correctly what happened in his or her presence, to recollect that information, and to transmit it correctly to the investigator. A mistake made in recalling a particular incident is often due to one or more of the following: 

. Weakness in the interviewee's ability to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. 

l Location of the interviewee in relation to the incident at the time it occurred. Rarely do two people give the same account of an incident witnessed by them. 

. Lapse of time since the incident occurred or the interviewee's having had no reason for attaching much importance to the incident when it occurred. The account given of an incident at a later time is often colored, consciously or unconsciously, by what the interviewee has heard or seen regarding the incident since it occurred. Furthermore, an interviewee may fill in the gaps of a particular incident by rationalizing what was actually seen or heard and may repeat the entire mixture of fabrication and fact to the investigator as the truth.

Therefore, an individual should be interviewed or interrogated as soon as possible after the occurrence of an incident. Even then, all your skill is required to discover what the interviewee actually observed and can recall accurately. Additionally, a suspect who is interviewed as soon as possible has less time to formulate alibis with potential conspirators or to establish an otherwise viable sequence of events.

Prejudice

When answering questions, most interviewees are often influenced by one type of prejudice or another. Information obtained in a detailed manner will often preclude the misleading information that prejudiced persons will furnish if allowed to talk in generalities.

You may also be influenced by prejudice. To guard against this, you must train yourself to stick to the facts.

Reluctance to Talk

You may encounter a person who is reluctant to divulge information. You must legally overcome this reluctance to secure the information you need. The most common reasons for reluctance to talk are the following:

Fear of self-involvement. Many persons are not familiar with police methods and are afraid to aid the police. They may have committed a minor offense they believe will be brought to light upon the least involvement with the police. They may think the incidents that occurred are not their business, or that guilt lies jointly on the victims and the accused. They may fear publicity that may be given to persons involved in any way with criminal cases. They also fear reprisal against them.

Inconvenience. Many persons disclaim knowledge of incidents because they do not wish to be inconvenienced by being subjected to questioning or by being required to appear in courts.

Resentment toward police and police methods. This resentment may be present particularly among persons who do not have a positive loyalty to the organized community. Sometimes the resentment manifests itself as sympathy for an accused person, regarded as the underdog pitted against the impersonal, organized forces of society represented by the police.

Investigator-interviewee personality conflicts. The lack of success in an interview or interrogation may be due to a personality conflict between the investigator and the interviewee. When that is the case, the investigator should recognize this factor and, before all chances of success are lost, should voluntarily withdraw in favor of another investigator. The interviewee may feel a compulsion to talk to the new investigator after an experience with the investigator who, for one reason or another, was found objectionable.

WITNESSES TO INTERVIEWS AND INTERROGATIONS

There is usually no requirement to have a witness to a nonsuspect interview or interrogation. With suspects, however, someone should be present to witness the advisement of rights and the oath-taking and signing of any written statements obtained from the suspect.

There is nothing that prohibits an interrogator from excusing the witness to the interrogation, after a waiver of rights is obtained if the interrogator prefers certain psychological advantages that come from a "person-to-person" relationship with the suspect. You can call the witness back before the suspect swears to the truthfulness of the statement and signs it.

There normally should not be more than two interrogators present in the interrogation room, since interrogating a suspect in the presence of many law enforcement personnel has been held by the courts to be suggestive of duress. It is also recommended that the witness to the completion of the Rights Warning and Waiver Certificate and the witness to the statements of a suspect be the same person. This has the practical aspect of requiring only two investigators to appear in court rather than three.

INTERVIEWS/INTERROGATIONS OF MEMBERS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX

An investigator should never jeopardize an interview or interrogation by ignoring the fact that a victim, witness, or even a suspect may be reluctant to talk to a member of the opposite sex about intimate subjects. In some cases, however, the opposite may be true. The investigator should be sensitive to this and plan the session accordingly. Additionally, when interviewing or interrogating a member of the opposite sex, a second investigator or command representative should be present to avoid false claims of investigator misconduct.