How to get what you want without saying a word

One of my favorite aspects of law enforcement is interviewing and interrogating (I&I). The adrenaline rush of getting a great confession is as good as any. Convincing a suspect to admit to you, the police, that they committed a crime is a skill. I&I isn’t just for major cases. As soon as you graduate from the academy you begin using I&I techniques. A car stop, a suspicious person, or a domestic all require you to ask questions and receive answers to determine what is happening. The I&I classes I teach can last from 8 hours up to 40 hours. I teach all kinds of exercises, analogies, techniques and known practices, but if I only had 10 minutes to teach interviewing and interrogating I would focus on one technique; Silence!

Nobody likes awkward silence. Nobody except for a trained interviewer! When you ask a suspect a question, they will provide you with only enough information to satisfy you, or so they think. The awkward pause lets them know that the answer that they provided was not enough to let you move onto the next question. Here’s a simple example:

Interviewer: What did you do this morning?

Suspect: Just woke up and went to work. That’s about it.

Interviewer: (Pauses and doesn’t say anything. Just nods slightly. Don’t give in!)

Suspect: And I also stopped at the store

The pause forced the suspect to let you know that they stopped somewhere before arriving at work. That may be useful to an investigation. Not to mention if someone says “really” in their response, they are withholding information from you.

People want to fill that awkward silence with something, so they will fill it with more information. Next time you are checking on a suspicious vehicle and you ask the driver “What are you doing here?”, after they answer, just wait a minute before asking a second question. At a minimum, the pause creates stress and the person being questioned will react to the stress. It also gives the illusion that you know more than you may actually know. Raising the eyebrows and pausing is equivalent to saying “And what else” after they finish giving you the answer.

This awkward silence also works on your fellow officers. I was interviewing a suspect and I laid out my theory and then waited for the suspect to answer. My partner, who was uncomfortable with the silence, asked another question before the suspect could answer. After the interview I had to tell my partner to just take notes next time!

For a full interviewing and interrogation class you can book me through www.LynnPeavey.com under training. Tell me what you think of “the pause” and if you use it.

Sgt.