OnPolicing Blog

Clarification: This is a collaborative work, with one author, Rodney Parks, a veteran police official, and the other, P.S. Perkins, a communications expert. When the article below uses “I,” “me,” or “we,” it reflects the experiences and views of the law enforcement official. Otherwise, both authors have developed this approach together.

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Years of successful and unsuccessful interrogations led me to study and seek solutions to improve effective communication during interviewer and subject/suspect interactions.

Thinking back on one incident in particular, I could not help but overhear the loud banging and bumping up against the walls coming from inside the interview room. Eventually, the door opened, and one of the interviewing detectives and the interviewee spilled onto the floor while the other detective attempted to intervene in the fight. During the interview, the detective who ended up in the fight became agitated, elevating his demeanor and voice to match the interviewee’s, who, in turn, was also becoming agitated in response to the hard questioning approach.

As many in the public know from watching crime dramas, an approach sometimes associated with police interrogation is referred to as “good cop/bad cop,” where one interviewer is stern and accusatory and the other is consoling and comforting. In this interview, the detectives used the “bad cop/bad cop” approach with injurious results.

A common, well-known technique in interviews and interrogations is to build rapport with the suspect. However, rapport cannot be established when an interviewer allows toxic emotional contagion or emotional transference to create a barrier to the communication exchange between interviewer and suspect/subject.

What is meant by those two phrases?

Emotional contagion is normal and, to a significant extent, necessary, in all relationships. We often call this sympathy or empathy. Our emotions are more contagious than any known pathogen because they are always present and being exchanged in the effort to share our perspectives.

Emotional transference is the “intentional spreading of negative and/or positive emotions” (Perkins, 2005).

Emotions are contagious. Adler and Proctor (2023), in discussing interpersonal communication, defined emotional contagion as “the process by which emotions are transferred from one person to another.” In the case of the interview cited above, which clearly went wrong, there was obviously emotional contagion exchanged among all parties. This exchange, however, involved not just contagion but also blew up into negative transference! Too often for too many, it is easier to share the negative emotions because of a need to protect one’s perceived identity. In this specific instance, the attending detective caught the emotional transference bait, and escalation ensued, which was detrimental to the interrogation. This raised the question: How much of this was based on previous experiences that became a catalyst?

Understand, we all catch emotions from others during our moment-to-moment interactions. Most emotional sharing is the normal activity of human interaction, but it is the law enforcement individual who must remain conscious of his or her emotions. This individual must also possess the ability to prevent those emotions from getting out of control or being intentionally manipulated. Constant perception-checking during the exchange and staying focused on appropriate responses and procedures are tools that will allow the attending officers to maintain prominent levels of protocol and concern for self and others. In the heat of the moment, it is often hard to carefully form the words and elicit behaviors that will result in a positive outcome, especially when the interaction is adversarial.

Managing Emotional “Residue” and Interrogating with Emotional Intelligence

Mental and emotional residue comprises all experiences of the past that inform and create an individual’s Emotional IQ (EIQ).

Emotional intelligence can be defined as consisting of two major parts. First is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage one’s own emotions. Second is the ability to recognize, understand, and influence the emotions of others.

Interviewers must control their mental and emotional intrapersonal communication while engaged in the interview process, no matter how the interviewee or suspect speaks or behaves. Both the interviewers and interviewees also bring their past experiences to bear (emotional residue) while feeling a heightened need for self-defense during interrogation. So, which participants are responsible for the communication climate (the temperature of the exchange) within the interview room (Settembrino, 2022)?

Detectives comprehend the need to recognize, understand, and manage their emotions before, during, and after the interrogation process. As (DC) Metropolitan Police Department Retired Detective Grade One Joseph Fox said in a conversation with one of the authors, “Some detectives come into an interview with an attitude, and that gets you nowhere.” This is an intense process for anyone, but especially for officers engaged in criminal investigations under the pressure of time and judicial constraints.

The sharing of EIQ will vary based on the environment where and with whom the emotions are shared. Each participant experiencing the interview is doing so through his or her unique prism of perception. In other words, both sides of the room are bringing their residue—or experiences—to the table. It does not matter whether the individual has historically experienced generational oppression, isolation, or self-determined destruction, or the individual hails from generational circumstances that have supported his or her development into a law-abiding, self-determined, civic-responsible individual. Regardless of their personal background, individuals seek to protect the reality in which they live and operate. Considering the way emotions play such a vital role in interrogation, the following communication concepts will aid law enforcement personnel in their ability to mitigate critical engagements.

Emotional Contagion vs. Emotional Transference

A helpful way to immediately engage is the perception-checking tool of the Three-Selves™.

“Self” refers to the individual involved in the engagement needing to affect a productive outcome. The individual practicing civic communication determines before, during, and after the interaction to: Self-Monitor → Self-Reflect → Self-Adjust.

Self-Monitor: Become immediately aware of emotions/feelings and ask: Where are you drawing these emotions from?

Self-Reflect: Is this thought or pattern of thinking going to escalate or de-escalate the current engagement? Am I able to “humanize” the person on the other side of this exchange?

Self-Adjust: Based on my immediate assessment, do I want to act in accordance with these thoughts/emotions, or should I self-adjust to a more appropriate response? What is needed for me to adjust—internally and externally?

In Closing

We frequently operate in high-pressure environments where how officers respond—not just react—can help maintain control and prevent situations from getting out of hand. Retired MPD Detective Grade One Michael Ross once said, “An interrogation is often like a boxing match with an exchange of verbal jabs, [and] you don’t want emotions to escalate into an actual physical match.”

Understanding and applying the concepts discussed in this article will allow you to stay in control of your desired outcome, which is an effective interview/interrogation. These concepts are equally important to civic policing—a policing philosophy that supports productive community relationships and outcomes.

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References

Adler, R. B., Proctor, R. F., & Manning, J. (2023). Looking out, looking in (16th ed.). Cengage.

Perkins, P. S. (2005, September). Human Communication Institute. http://www.hci-global.com/

Settembrino, L. (2022, May 17). How showing emotional intelligence in an interview is key to landing your next job. Top Interview. http://www.topinterview.com/interview-advice/emotional-intelligence-job-interview