Forensic Interviewing and Statement Analysis

Forensic Interviewing and Statement Analysis
Scope	Procedures for planning, conducting, analysing and documenting interviews in fraud inquiries
Models covered	Cognitive interview; PEACE; strategic use of evidence; admission-seeking sequence
Analysis tools	Baselines; CBCA and reality monitoring; verbal-content review
Legal limits	Upjohn warnings; Miranda; Garrity; Weingarten; recording-consent laws
Evidence base	Average lie-detection accuracy about 54% (Bond & DePaulo, 2006)

Forensic interviewing is the structured questioning of witnesses, custodians, informants and suspects in a fraud or financial-crime inquiry, together with the analysis and documentation of what they say. The general principles (rapport, active listening, open questions) are set out in Investigative Interviewing. This article goes deeper into the how: the step-by-step structure of the main evidence-based methods, the practical use of baselines and verbal-content analysis, the admission-seeking sequence used in internal fraud cases, the written record, the legal limits on each step, and what the research says about the limits of detecting deception. The overarching message is that interviews are an evidence-gathering tool whose products must be tested against documents (see Evidence and Testimony), not a lie detector.

1 Planning an interview

1. Sequence. Interview from the periphery to the centre: third-party witnesses and records custodians first, then process owners, then people with direct involvement, and last the principal subject. Each earlier interview yields facts and documents which narrow the subject’s room for manoeuvre.
2. Know the documents. Prepare an exhibit binder with copies (not originals) of every document you may show, ordered by the interview agenda. Prepare a timeline and a list of points the subject can confirm, correct or explain.
3. Define objectives. Write them as questions the interview should answer (“Who authorised vendor X?”, “What is the subject’s access to the payment system?”), not as the confession sought.
4. Decide who attends and what status applies. Two interviewers (one leads, one records and watches); legal counsel involvement; whether the person is a witness, a subject or in custody, because the status determines the warnings and rights that apply (section 8).
5. Logistics. Neutral, private room; no interruptions; a clear record plan (recording, notes). Agree on breaks, and do not hold interviews so long that they become coercive.

2 The cognitive interview

The cognitive interview (CI) was developed by Ronald Fisher and Edward Geiselman in the 1980s to improve witness recall using principles of memory research, and the “enhanced” version adds communication and rapport components. A meta-analysis of 57 articles (65 experiments) by Memon, Meissner and Fraser (2010) found a large and significant increase in correct details compared with standard interviews, with only a small increase in errors and no difference in confabulation rates.^[1] It is the method of choice for cooperative witnesses, such as a clerk who watched the controller override a control, and for victims.

Step	What the interviewer does	Example in a fraud inquiry
1. Build rapport and set the ground rules	Explain that the witness is the expert on what happened; instruct the witness to say “I don’t know” and to correct the interviewer; ask the witness not to guess	“I wasn’t there, so I need you to tell me. If I get something wrong, tell me.”
2. Context reinstatement	Ask the witness to mentally recreate the setting (place, mood, sounds, what they were doing) before recalling	“Think back to the Friday close. Where were you sitting, who was around, what was on your screen?”
3. Open narrative / report everything	Invite a free account without interruption; encourage reporting of partial or trivial details	“Tell me everything about how that invoice was approved, even small details.”
4. Probing	Follow up on images and details the witness mentioned, using the witness’s own words, and open questions	“You mentioned a phone call. Tell me more about that call.”
5. Reverse order / change perspective	Ask for the events in a different order or from another person’s point of view (use with caution; perspective-taking can raise error)	“Start with the last thing that happened and walk backwards.”
6. Summary and close	Summarise the account and invite corrections; ask whether anything was left out; leave contact details	“Is there anything I should have asked but did not?”

Pitfalls: leading or suggestive questions during probing contaminate memory; interrupting the narrative reduces the amount recalled; showing a document too early replaces recollection with recognition.

3 The PEACE model in practice

PEACE was introduced in England and Wales in 1992 to replace confession-oriented questioning following a series of miscarriages of justice, and is now the basis of non-accusatory interviewing in many jurisdictions.^[2] It stands for Planning and preparation, Engage and explain, Account, Closure, and Evaluation. Its principle is that the interviewer’s job is to obtain an accurate and complete account, not a confession.

1. Planning and preparation: aims, legal framework, evidence, topics, and a plan for each stage (section 1).
2. Engage and explain: greet, build rapport, state the purpose, explain the process and the person’s status and rights, and explain the ground rules.
3. Account: obtain the person’s own account using the cognitive interview (free recall first), then probe for detail and clarify, then challenge any inconsistency with evidence (“help me understand”), never with accusation or deception.
4. Closure: summarise, check for corrections, give the person an opportunity to add anything, explain what happens next.
5. Evaluation: assess what the interview achieved against the objectives and against other evidence; identify follow-up work; review the interviewer’s own performance.

The strength of the evidence for the information-gathering approach comes from comparative research. A meta-analytic review by Meissner and colleagues in the Journal of Experimental Criminology (2014) concluded that the available data support the effectiveness of an information-gathering style of interviewing suspects, while cautioning that the number of independent samples was small.^[3] That is a more modest claim than that accusatorial methods always produce false confessions, but it supports a practical conclusion: where reliability matters more than speed, as in fraud cases that will be tested in court, the information-gathering approach is the safer default. The UN Special Rapporteur’s 2021 “Principles on Effective Interviewing for Investigations and Information Gathering” (the Mendez Principles) make the same recommendation a matter of international standards (see also International Forensic Standards).

4 Strategic use of evidence

The Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE) technique, developed by Par Anders Granhag and Maria Hartwig, manages when the interviewer discloses documents. Guilty and innocent subjects differ in how they respond to a question when they do not know what evidence exists: a person trying to hide something tends to avoid statements the evidence might contradict, whereas an innocent person tends to describe events freely.^[4] The procedure:

1. List the key pieces of evidence (an email, an access log, a bank record) and decide the order in which to disclose them.
2. Ask open questions about the topic first (“Tell me about your dealings with Vendor X”) and commit the subject to a version of events without revealing the document.
3. Ask specific, evidence-related questions that pin down details the document can test (“Did you ever visit their office? When was the last time you spoke with the owner?”).
4. Disclose the evidence gradually, least incriminating first, and then ask the subject to explain any contradiction.
5. Record the shifts in the account (admits, changes, denies) and compare them to the documents afterwards.

The value is in producing checkable statements. A subject who denies knowing a vendor and is later shown a phone log has produced a contradiction with physical evidence, which is worth far more than an impression of nervousness.

5 Baselines and verbal-content analysis

Behavioural baseline. At the start, spend five to ten minutes on neutral topics with known answers (job history, daily routine, how the department works). Note how the person speaks (fluency, detail, pace, directness) and behaves when relaxed. Later changes can mark topics for follow-up, but they are never evidence of lying by themselves, since a topic may simply be more stressful, embarrassing or complicated.

Verbal-content review (practical). A defensible review looks at what is in the account, not how it “sounds”:

• Level of detail and verifiability: does the account contain checkable specifics (names, times, locations, documents) and are they correct when checked?
• Consistency: within the account, across repeated tellings, and with the documents. Over-consistent (word-for-word) repetition can reflect rehearsal; ordinary memory varies in peripheral details but is stable on central ones.
• Omissions and gaps: events that are skipped, time that is not accounted for, or sudden compression (“then I did the usual stuff”).
• Changes in terms: shifts in how the subject refers to a person, thing or action (from “the vendor” to “my friend”).
• Unsolicited information and spontaneous corrections, which are characteristic of genuine memory.

Two research-derived frameworks structure the review. Criteria-Based Content Analysis (CBCA), originally developed for statements by child witnesses, scores a statement against about 19 content criteria (logical structure, unstructured production, quantity of details, contextual embedding, reproduction of conversation, unexpected complications, and others). Reality monitoring assumes that memories of real events contain more sensory, contextual and spatial details than imagined ones. Both produce better-than-chance classification in laboratory settings, but neither is accurate enough to decide a case, and both are affected by the narrator’s verbal ability and the type of event.

Cautions about “statement analysis” systems. Popular schemes that rely on pronoun use, changes in tense or hedging words (such as Scientific Content Analysis, SCAN) have been tested and have not performed. In one controlled study of 117 participants who each wrote a true and a fabricated statement, SCAN criteria did not distinguish the two, leading the authors to say that its use in its current form should be discouraged.^[5] A fair statement is that such indicators can prompt a question but cannot be reported as findings. Cognitive-load approaches (asking for a reverse-order account, or for unexpected questions, or asking the subject to draw a scene) are more promising because they increase the difference in the information that truthful and deceptive people produce.

6 The admission-seeking sequence

In internal fraud investigations the ACFE’s Fraud Examiners Manual teaches a graduated sequence in which the examiner moves from general questions to an admission-seeking stage only after the evidence has been gathered. The version below is summarised from that general approach; it is distinct from the confrontational Reid nine-step method discussed in Investigative Interviewing, but its final stage is still accusatory, so it carries more false-confession risk than information-gathering and requires safeguards.

Stage	Purpose	Typical content
1. Introductory	Set tone, explain purpose, establish identity and baseline	Non-threatening questions; the interviewer’s role; confidentiality limits
2. Informational	Obtain facts about the process, controls and people	Open questions about the process, who has access, what changed
3. Assessment	Test whether the person is likely to be involved; separate witnesses from suspects	Questions about control awareness, willingness to cooperate, who might have done it; observation against baseline
4. Closing	Obtain the final account; rule in or out	Summary; “is there anything else?”
5. Admission-seeking (only for a probable perpetrator)	Obtain a truthful admission and the details	Present the evidence; minimise the moral gravity without promising leniency; seek the admission; then obtain details only the culprit would know; scope (other involvement, others, amounts); then a written statement

Safeguards. (1) Never present fabricated evidence; courts in some jurisdictions tolerate limited police deception, but in a corporate setting it creates legal and credibility risks and is incompatible with the PEACE model. (2) Never promise leniency, threaten, or imply a promise of non-prosecution which the organization cannot grant. (3) Avoid lengthy sessions, sleep or food deprivation, and take extra care with juveniles, persons with intellectual disability, and people under the influence. (4) Get corroborating detail: a reliable admission contains information that was not given to the subject and that checks against independent evidence (the location of the cash, the account number). Research on false confessions shows that persuasion can yield confessions that are factually wrong, which is why the admission must be tested, not simply recorded.

7 Documentation and written statements

• Record or note-take. Where lawful and appropriate, audio-record the entire interview with the subject informed; otherwise, a second interviewer takes verbatim notes. Keep original notes (see Chain of Custody); a clean typed memorandum should be written as soon as possible and be reviewed against the notes.
• Memorandum of interview. Contains date, time start and end, location, those present, status and warnings given, a summary of what was said (not a verbatim claim unless it is a transcript), the documents shown, any statements offered by the subject, and breaks. State the facts; leave out interviewer conclusions about credibility and personal opinions.
• Written statement (if taken). In the subject’s own words, in first person, covering who, what, when, where and how; each page initialled; corrections initialled; a closing line stating that it is voluntary and that it has been read and is true; signature and date, with the interviewer as a witness. Do not draft it for the subject unless needed, and have the subject read it aloud or silently in full.
• Preserve exhibits shown to the subject, marked with an exhibit number and the subject’s own comments.
• Report. Feed the results into the report with the interview as one source among others, stating where the account was corroborated, where it was contradicted, and where it was not tested.

8 Legal limits

Rule	When it matters	Practical consequence
Upjohn warning (Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981))	Company counsel (or investigators acting for counsel) interviewing employees	The Supreme Court held that a company’s privilege can cover communications between company counsel and non-management employees made to enable counsel to give legal advice; it is the company’s privilege, not the employee’s.[6] The interviewer should state that counsel represents the company and not the employee, that the interview is privileged but the privilege belongs to the company, which may waive it and disclose it to authorities, and that the employee must keep the discussion confidential. Record that the warning was given.
Miranda warnings	Custodial interrogation by government officers	Private investigators are generally not bound, but their conduct can be attributed to the state if they act at the direction of law enforcement.
Garrity / Kalkines	Public employees compelled to answer on pain of dismissal	Compelled statements may not be used in a later criminal prosecution; interviewers must know which warning applies before the interview.
Weingarten rights (NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 1975)	Unionised employees in interviews that may lead to discipline	The employee may request union representation; ignoring the request creates labour-law exposure.
Recording-consent laws	Any recording of telephone or in-person interviews	Some U.S. states and many countries require consent of all parties; follow the strictest applicable rule.
Whistleblower and anti-retaliation provisions	Interviews of those who reported concerns	Do not discourage or retaliate against a reporter or ask the employee to waive protected disclosure rights.
Data-protection and employment law	Cross-border and employee interviews	Notice, proportionality and right-of-access rules can apply to notes and recordings.

Because these rules differ by jurisdiction and facts, engage counsel before interviewing in any matter that may lead to litigation or prosecution; see also Forensic Accountant Ethics.

9 What the research says about detecting deception

Large bodies of research find that people, including professionals, are poor at telling lies from truths by watching and listening.

• Accuracy near chance. Bond and DePaulo’s 2006 meta-analysis of 206 documents and 24,483 judges found an average accuracy of 54%: lies were correctly classified as deceptive 47% of the time and truths as non-deceptive 61% of the time (a “truth bias”).^[7]
• Cues are weak. Hartwig and Bond (2011), in Psychological Bulletin, argued that lie-catchers fail because the behavioural cues that actually differ between liars and truth-tellers are few and weak, and the cues that people believe indicate lying (gaze aversion, fidgeting) do not.^[8]
• Confidence does not track accuracy, and experience in law enforcement or investigations does not reliably improve accuracy; training in cue-reading may increase confidence without improving it.
• Context effects. Interviewers who expect guilt ask more guilt-presumptive questions, and then see confirming behaviour in the answers (“self-fulfilling prophecy”).
• Polygraphs. They measure arousal and are not a direct measure of deception; U.S. courts largely exclude results, and a 2003 National Research Council review concluded that polygraph accuracy in screening is insufficient for security use (see Daubert Standard and Forensic Validity Crisis for the admissibility framework).

The implication for practice is to shift effort from detecting lies to eliciting verifiable information and then checking it. Methods that increase cognitive load, ask for detail and use evidence strategically give a better chance of identifying deception than demeanour does; the final test is always the document trail. For a discussion of cognitive and organizational biases in investigators themselves, see Forensic Validity Crisis and CSI Effect.

See also: Investigative Interviewing, Evidence and Testimony, Occupational Fraud, Report Writing, Forensic Practitioner Burnout.

References

1. Memon, A., Meissner, C. A. & Fraser, J. “The Cognitive Interview: A meta-analytic review and study space analysis of the past 25 years.” Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 16(4), 2010. repository.royalholloway.ac.uk
2. Bull, R. et al. and Home Office/College of Policing materials on the PEACE model (introduced 1992); overview: “Improving the Interviewing of Suspects Using the PEACE Model: A Comprehensive Overview.” repository.derby.ac.uk
3. Meissner, C. A., Redlich, A. D., Michael, S. W., Evans, J. R., Camilletti, C. R., Bhatt, S. & Brandon, S. “Accusatorial and information-gathering interrogation methods and their effects on true and false confessions: a meta-analytic review.” Journal of Experimental Criminology 10, 2014. works.bepress.com
4. Granhag, P. A. & Hartwig, M. “A new theoretical perspective on deception detection: On the psychology of instrumental mind-reading” and related work on the Strategic Use of Evidence technique (Lund/Gothenburg).
5. Bogaard, G., Meijer, E. H., Vrij, A. & Merckelbach, H. “Scientific Content Analysis (SCAN) Cannot Distinguish Between Truthful and Fabricated Accounts of a Negative Event.” Frontiers in Psychology 7:243, 2016. cris.maastrichtuniversity.nl
6. Upjohn Co. v. United States, 449 U.S. 383 (1981). govinfo.gov
7. Bond, C. F. & DePaulo, B. M. “Accuracy of deception judgments.” Personality and Social Psychology Review 10(3), 2006. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
8. Hartwig, M. & Bond, C. F. “Why do lie-catchers fail? A lens model meta-analysis of human lie judgments.” Psychological Bulletin 137(4), 2011. assets.aclu.org (copy)