Michael McClary’s research while affiliated with University of Nevada, Las Vegas and other places

Research on investigative interviewing tends to focus on a limited number of interview methods employed during an interview in pursuit of a singular outcome. The present study took an expansive view of the techniques used, questions asked and interviewer disposition, and related them to three interview goals—overcoming resistance, gathering information and eliciting confessions. Drawing upon theory and prior research, we hypothesised that certain methods would be more relevant to certain outcomes than others, such as question types would have a greater effect on information gain than techniques or interviewer disposition. Using a sample of 43 suspect interviews provided by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD), we found partial support for our hypotheses. Rapport‐based approaches and a respectful disposition reduced resistance, open‐ended questions elicited more information than closed‐ended ones and in the final model, only open‐ended questions increased confessions. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

This review organises the literature on presenting evidence in police interviews for researchers and practitioners to capture the breadth of the topic, and it is organised around the question of why evidence is presented during an interview. The literature was also coded for what type of evidence is presented and with what technique, when evidence is presented, and how it is presented. We found no support for the notion that presenting evidence will overcome resistance and is likely to increase it, presenting evidence gradually and in a challenging manner is the most effective approach to credibility assessment and information disclosure.

The majority of research on investigative interviewing has been on police attempting to solve a crime by obtaining a confession or gathering information, and comparatively fewer studies have examined interviewing at points “downstream” in the process, such as in the courts or correctional system. Furthermore, the focus of the research has been to measure the variable techniques or questioning strategies that produce confessions or information at the expense of analyzing factors related to the interview itself. Thus, we analyzed a sample of 50 corrections-based interviews for “dynamic” interviewing methods and interviewee responses that were measured at three points throughout the interview, and we measured 10 “static” interview factors. In the final multilevel model, we found that productive questioning methods increased a component score that combined interviewee cooperation, engagement, and forthcomingness, the several measures of accusatorial interrogation methods decreased the outcome measure, and the case-level variable of interviewee-initiated interviews increased it.

Researchers have been interested in police investigations for a half-century or more. In the academic literature, however, there is virtually no examination of analogous investigation units and investigators that operate exclusively in jails, prisons, or detention centers, despite these units being in nearly all large local, state, and federal facilities. The purpose of the present study was to bring one unit’s operations to light. We conducted focus groups with current and former correctional investigators regarding the tempo of their work, the various natures of their investigations, and how the investigators viewed their place within broader criminal justice operations. A major component of the corrections-based operations includes investigative interviews of inmates for intelligence-gathering purposes, and we identified a process model of correctional investigations that may be applicable to the wider field of correctional intelligence units.

This article identifies and describes a set of behavioral indicators associated with illegal drug carrying in public spaces. Through the use of focus group data, our research documents and translates the visual search techniques that veteran law enforcement and drugs experts report using in their work. Here, we catalogue these findings into 10 overarching categories, and discuss how each indicator may be incorporated into an officer’s visual search. Knowledge of these indicators, when combined with proper training and an understanding of a public space, can help law enforcement identify persons who may be carrying drugs. The ability to identify drug-carrying individuals facilitates the interdiction and apprehension of offenders, and also protects the civil rights and liberties of the law-abiding public.