Building rapport in interviews and debriefings: Translating research into practice

By Dr Laure Brimball and Lt Sean Hill

Communication is a key mediator of relationships and can increase or decrease trust in relationship settings. [1] Recently, interactions between police and officers have been at the forefront of the national conversation, especially interactions involving underserved populations. How police communicate with the public has received increased attention from academics and law enforcement leaders seeking to put evidence-based practices into the hands of police officers. [2] Although academics and practitioners cite communication skills as a key component to addressing the challenges facing the law enforcement profession, [3, 4] very little training is usually devoted to these skills.

Translating science-tested communication techniques to practitioners can help improve practices and training at all levels of policing, from front-line officers to major crime investigators. Scholars in translational criminology have acknowledged how scientific evidence struggles to reach line-level officers, who often still rely on standard models of policing with little or no evidence to support their effectiveness. [5] In an effort to address this gap, this article introduces an evidence-based approach to interviewing and offers examples of how practitioners can use this approach in the field.

Evidence-based interview techniques

Research offers the police effective communication methods to gather information. One such example is link building. Many studies have demonstrated the positive effect that building rapport can have on outcomes such as subject (referring to each interviewee as a victim, witness or suspect) cooperation and disclosure. [6]

Because policing depends on the public’s willingness to cooperate, evidence-based communication techniques such as rapport building offer a pathway to more successful police-community interactions and offer an example of what translational criminology strives to achieve. [7] In interviews, interrogations, and even field interactions, the techniques an officer uses have the potential to affect police-community relations, either positively or negatively. Techniques such as rapport building, if used responsibly, can have a positive impact on information gathering and police-community relations, while more coercive interviewing techniques lack empirical evidence to support their use and may have harmful results.

A relationship can be defined in many ways, but generally includes elements of positivity, mutual consideration, and coordination. [8] This article will use a broad definition adopted by Brimbal et al. [9] who define rapport as “the relationship between the interviewer and the subject with a generally positive exchange; attention to each other’s care; and the importance of developing respect and trust’. [10] In an interview setting, rapport building is used within an information gathering approach that can be contrasted with more traditional accusatory interview practices.

Within the information-gathering approach, the interviewer uses rapport building and adopts an open-minded perspective, trying to obtain as much information as possible while maintaining the presumption of innocence. These techniques differ from incriminating interview approaches, which are closed in nature and rely on control, deception, manipulation, and minimizing the consequences of confessions. Such approaches often include tactics such as leading or prompt questions, interrupting denials, and direct positive confrontation.

Although some rapport-building techniques can be used within a more coercive interview, the information-gathering approach is different in that the interviewer uses rapport as the basis of the entire interview, as opposed to tactically advantageous moments during the interview . Research shows promising results to support the use of information gathering and understanding approaches to increase disclosure. [11]

Translating research into practice

The translation and dissemination of research findings to law enforcement are two major components of translational criminology. Rapport interviewing techniques are an example of scientifically tested methods that can be easily learned and put into practice by practitioners.

Investigative interviewing models for gathering information generally include a respectful and accommodating approach to the interviewee, as well as the use of rapport-building and productive questions. Indeed, interviewing strategies such as rapport building and active listening have shown beneficial effects on attitudinal (eg, perceptions of understanding, trust) and behavioral (eg, cooperation) variables, [9] outcomes typically considered in procedural justice research.

Rapport-building techniques in an information-gathering interview may include:

• Asking open-ended questions (eg “tell”, “explain”, “describe”)
• Use of affirmations (ie positive reinforcement, such as “Thank you, that was very helpful”)
• Active listening (e.g. using encouraging words such as ‘go ahead, mm-hmm etc’, repeating key words, echoing, evidence of alternation)
• Summarizing a subject’s narrative to demonstrate listening
• Using silence and avoiding interruptions to allow the topic to unfold
• Expressing empathy (people’s ability to understand another’s thoughts, feelings and perspectives) without justifying illegal behavior
• Allowing subject autonomy (ie, providing space for the subject to speak in the conversation)
• Showing interest in the subject as a person
• Showing respect and patience
• Using evocation to elicit an individual’s feelings and motives
• Revealing personal information and finding similarities with the object

Law enforcement agencies around the world have begun to use rapport interviewing techniques, most notably in the UK, Norway and Sweden, [12] as well as in the United States in local and federal agencies with, for example, high-value detainees. Research on this topic has increased exponentially in the past decade [13] and initiates the expansion of partnerships between researchers and practitioners. By using rapport interviewing techniques, staff are able to put into practice effective evidence-based approaches to increase positive outcomes and benefit from the work done by researchers in the field.

References

1. Thomas G, Zolin R, Hartman J. (2009). The central role of communication in building trust and its effect on employee engagement. Journal of Business Communication, 46 (3): 287-310.

2. Giles H, Maguire ER, Hill SL. (ed.). (2021). Rowman and Littlefield’s Handbook of Policing, Communication and Society. Rowman and Littlefield.

3. Sklansky DA. (2011). The constant appeal of police professionalism. New Perspectives in Policing (Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety), March. Harvard Kennedy School. Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy.

4. Hill SL, Giles H. (2021). Police Culture: Us and Them Communication. In Rowman and Littlefield’s Handbook of Policing, Communication and Society (Eds.) Giles H, Maguire ER, Hill SL. Rowman and Littlefield.

5. Weisburd D, Eck JE. (2004). What can the police do to reduce crime, disorder and fear? Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, 593:1.

6. Gabbert F, et al. (2021). Exploring the use of linkage in the context of professional information gathering through systematic mapping of the evidence base. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 35: 329-341.

7. Laub JH. (2011). Strengthening NIJ: Mission, Science, and Process. NIJ Journal, 268(10): 16-21.

8. Tickle-Degnen L, Rosenthal R. (1990). The nature of understanding and its nonverbal correlates. Psychological Research, 1 (4): 285–293.

9. Brimbal L, et al. (2021). Evaluating the benefits of an understanding-based approach to investigative interviewing: a training study with law enforcement investigators. Law and Human Behavior, 45(1): 55-67.

10. Duke MC, et al. (2018). Development of the Relationship Scales for Investigative Interviews and Interrogations (RS3i), interviewee version. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 24, 64-79.

11. Alison LJ, Surmon-Bohr F, Shortland ND, Alison E. (2021). ORBIT: The Science of Relationship-Based Interviewing for Law Enforcement, Security, and the Military. Oxford University Press.

12. Walsh D, Oxburgh GE, Redlich AD, Myklebust T. (Eds.). (2017). International Developments and Practices in Investigative Interviewing and Interrogation: Volume 2: Suspects. Routledge.

13. Meissner CA, Surmon-Böhr F, Oleszkiewicz S, Alison LJ. (2017). Developing an Evidence-Based Perspective on Interrogation: A Review of the US Government’s High Value Detainee Interrogation Group Research Program. Psychology, Public Policy and Law, 23, 438-457.

For the authors

Dr. Loure Brimball is an assistant professor in the School of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Texas State University. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Law from the Graduate Center, CUNY. Dr. Brimball’s research interests are at the intersection of psychology and the criminal justice system, with an emphasis on research related to interviewing and topics such as rapport building, lie detection, evidence use, and how to overcome resistance. Dr. Brimball has also conducted several training evaluation studies in partnership with local and federal law enforcement agencies.

Sean Hill is a lieutenant with the Santa Barbara (California) Police Department and a Ph.D. student at UC Santa Barbara in the Department of Communication. He is an NIJ LEADS Scholar, a National Police Institute Fellow on Policing, and a member of the IACP Committee on Community Policing. Lieutenant Hill recently co-edited The Rowman and Littlefield Handbook on Policing, Communication and Society. He is currently involved in the implementation and evaluation of intergroup interventions between the police and the public.