Reid Interview and Interrogation courses

[hangman]

Anyone on here ever go through one? Are they worth it? Or is it just another company looking to get money from LE agency training budgets?

[BK4448]

I attended one a couple years ago in Mesa, Arizona. I loved it. I thought it was good stuff. However, it's just watching videos and sitting. I kind of wish we got to do practicals, but I do use some of the stuff I learned in the field. It's not a miracle worker, but I thought it was better than other classes I have taken.

[ISPCAPT]

I took Reid and Advanced Reid in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Well worth it. It works. Of course it doesn't work on everyone but it works more times than it doesn't.

[Ratatatat]

For 500 bucks it's a good week of training. Just know that Jedi mind tricks didn't work on Jabba the Hutt nor will they work on high IQ sociopaths.

[JDCOP]

Went through basic and advanced class a few years ago. Its good but not the only style. If you aren’t an investigator or detective doing interviews in a room don’t go. If you’re a street guy get better at just talking then progress to roadside interview training.

[tanksoldier]

Reid has a patrol-level course now... one hour online.

[GoldBadge]

It is one of many interrogation "tools" that one is taught in a career. Like anything else, sometimes it's useful.

[just joe]

Reid has a patrol-level course now... one hour online.

Any idea of it's worth the money?

[tanksoldier]

Any idea of it's worth the money?

No idea. One of the officers I work with has taken the 4 day course. She says it was worth it, but like everyone is saying... it’s one tool in the toolbox.

Ill probably talk my department into paying for the hour course ($99) and decide if I want to push for the 4day course.

[CCCSD]

Is it accepted by your state? They HAVE issues in what they teach which have been brought up in court.

[tanksoldier]

Is it accepted by your state? They HAVE issues in what they teach which have been brought up in court.

Colorado doesn't accept or certify training, except for academy courses and certain training mandated by statute.

Everything else it's up to the individual department whether to accept training or not.

...and from what I've read all the false confessions and other problems were a result of misusing the technique.

[CCCSD]

The technique taught created the issues.

[tanksoldier]

The technique taught created the issues.

I haven't taken the course, and certainly haven't read everything about it... but the ones I've found were things like confessions where DNA or other evidence didn't match. That should be a red flag regardless of interrogation technique.

I've also read about objections to the "alternative question" tactic: you offer two possible explanations for the crime, one of which is more socially acceptable but both of which are confessions, without offering the third alternative: that the suspect didn't commit the crime at all. I can see why a defense attorney would argue that but I'm unaware of any right to have the cops provide all the possible answers.

This is actually a tactic I've used for years before I ever heard of Reid.

...and I'm aware of the lawsuits and settlements, but lots of settlements get made in lots of lawsuits with no actual wrongdoing involved.

I'll have to take the course and see what I think myself.

[Georgetime]

I haven't taken the course, and certainly haven't read everything about it... but the ones I've found were things like confessions where DNA or other evidence didn't match. That should be a red flag regardless of interrogation technique.

I've also read about objections to the "alternative question" tactic: you offer two possible explanations for the crime, one of which is more socially acceptable but both of which are confessions, without offering the third alternative: that the suspect didn't commit the crime at all. I can see why a defense attorney would argue that but I'm unaware of any right to have the cops provide all the possible answers.

This is actually a tactic I've used for years before I ever heard of Reid.

...and I'm aware of the lawsuits and settlements, but lots of settlements get made in lots of lawsuits with no actual wrongdoing involved.

I'll have to take the course and see what I think myself.

I took the course several years ago, and as one person already alluded to, it doesn't work on a lot of the people you might deal with as an investigator: People with low social standing and/or IQ, street thugs and such. Basically it involves the art of using a person's desire to be seen as moral and good as pressure to convince them paint themselves in a better light by talking as the rock, and convincing them of your surety they committed the crime as the hard place. Your average street thug is impervious to such concerns, has no qualms about lying outright and doesn't have a lot of social status to maintain. That lawyers try to twist the concepts into something to attack at trial means nothing, they're defense lawyers, they do that with everything. In a gang related murder case my coworkers and I worked on, my coworker got the confession after I pressed the suspect so hard he didn't want to talk to me any more. The attorney tried to go after the confession by attacking the Reid method, even though the guy who got the actual confession never spent one minute in a Reid interview class and neither of us used any Reid techniques. It's just a standard line of attack because attorneys need anything they can to go after good confessions. In my case it didn't work and the dude is sitting in prison as I type, and will be there until he leaves in a box with ten toes pointing up.

In my experience Reid codifies some things you already know and puts them in a format that will work on certain people. Unless you normally find yourself interrogating teachers, bankers, accountants or other people with socially respectable positions, it will be of limited usefulness. My stock in trade was mostly thugs with limited intelligence, so I rarely used it.

[tanksoldier]

In my experience Reid codifies some things you already know and puts them in a format that will work on certain people. Unless you normally find yourself interrogating teachers, bankers, accountants or other people with socially respectable positions, it will be of limited usefulness.

I don't know what the future will hold, but right now 50% of my investigations are for assault on or sex assault on children... suspects are usually classmates or family members.

Like anything it's a tool in the toolbox I suppose.