very effective, has provided valuable information that has saved American lives, causes no
permanent damage, and is not torture. Its detractors insist that it is torture and therefore in
violation of the Geneva Convention and American values. Regardless of who is right,
waterboarding has become the symbol of all that is bad in enhanced interrogation. Its
detractors decry its inhumanity and the physical and mental damage it causes. Its suppor-
ters laud its effectiveness and virtual harmlessness. Regardless of who is correct, a simple
countermeasure that can be used by the subject to avoid this ordeal is to fully and truthfully
answer each of the interrogator’s questions. Here the interrogated have the power to pre-
vent being waterboarded and the issue would be moot.
After promising to do so during his campaign, following his inauguration, President
Barack Obama ordered the closing of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, something
which appears to be more easily said than done. On Christmas Day 2009, an attempted
bombing attack of a Delta Airlines Flight to Detroit from Amsterdam was carried out by
23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a “radicalized Muslim” who allegedly was
trained in Yemen, by Yemenis who had been detained as terrorists at Guantanamo and
were subsequently released back into Yemen after being “rehabilitated” in Saudi Arabia.
The foregoing example illustrates that simple reasoning and kindness do not always
work to change the minds of men. Nor do extraordinary interrogation techniques always
get you to the truth.
One definite thing history has shown us is that you cannot reason with fanatics, whether
they are sports fanatics, political fanatics, food fanatics, or Islamic terrorists. It sometimes
takes “cognitive shock” to change a fanatic’s attitude and bring him or her to reason. The
authors are confident that our leaders are up to the challenge to make those tough decisions
that weigh the rights of the individual against the needs and safety of society. It is strong
leadership in these times that will keep our homeland and the world safe.
FIGURE 14.3
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14. TORTURE AND FALSE CONFESSIONS
SUMMARY
• The law enforcement and counterintelligence officer have different objectives when
conducting interrogations. One is to solve a crime and the other is to obtain information
to prevent one.
• The theory for coercive interrogation is that the interrogator’s goal is to cause regression
and break down the subject’s acquired skills to resist. Regression is defined here as an
individual’s return to a younger state of mind, caused by applying “relatively small
degrees of homeostatic derangement” such as fatigue, pain, sleep loss, or anxiety.
• In certain counterintelligence situations such as the “ticking bomb” scenarios that
face our military and intelligence service in the war on terror, decisions concerning
extraordinary interrogation measures may have to be undertaken “for the greater good.”
• False confessions generally occur as a result of misconduct or unethical behavior by the
interrogator(s).
• False confessions may occur with juveniles because they are very suggestible. The
younger the child, 12 years old or less, the more suggestible and more easily influenced
by negative feedback from the interrogator(s).
• The interrogative tools that lead to the majority of false confessions are the legal
misrepresentation of evidence by investigators, the implied understanding that a
confession will allow a suspect to go home, and, perhaps most of all, interrogations
of extreme length.
• The best way to ensure that a confession is true is for the investigator to hold back critical
crime information only the perpetrator, victim, or police would know. This information,
when freely given by the suspect, would then ensure the veracity of the confession.
References
[1] G. Piro, Interviews, Parts I and II, CBS News, 60 Minutes, January 28 (2008). Available at http://www.cbsnews
.com/stories/2008/01/24/60minutes/main3749494.shtml?tag contentMain;contentBody.
[2] United Nations High Commission, Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treat
ment or Punishment. Adopted and opened for signature, ratification, and accession by General Assembly
resolution 39/46 of December 10 (1984).
[3] KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, VA, June 1963.
[4] B. Curtis, Expert: Many criminal confessions false, Rutland (Vermont) Herald April 22 (2005).
[5] S.M. Kassin, The psychology of confessions, Annual Review of Law and Social Science September 29 (2008).
C H A P T E R
15
Pre-employment Interviewing
Over the last three decades, statistics have clearly demonstrated the security dangers
inherent in the standard hiring process. If a typical business person were to post an advertise-
ment in a newspaper and hire ten applicants without any type of screening, four would
already be planning to steal and would start within the first 2 weeks of employment. Sixty
percent of small businesses that go bankrupt do so because of internal theft. Employees
are estimated to steal at least five times more than shoplifters. When you think about it,
this makes sense. The employee is the one entrusted with the store keys, who handles
the merchandise, who handles the money. Some companies have been forced to accept this
and just try to keep this “shrinkage,” as it is known in the business world, to as low a percent-
age as possible.
One of the better weapons agencies and businesses have to combat this extensive
problem is utilizing a skilled interviewer to perform a pre-employment security interview.
This interview will utilize several techniques to ascertain information from the applicant
and allow the employer to select the most qualified candidate.
There are limited external checks that can be done, which might supply the business
person with more accurate information than the applicant himself. For example, you could
perform a criminal record check: this usually provides you with any criminal convictions
during the past 7 years – “usually,” because it requires that you check in the correct
geographical area. An applicant living in the northeast section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
who was convicted of a crime minutes away in bordering Bensalem, Pennsylvania, would
go undetected in a county search. He lives in Philadelphia County, but was convicted in
Bucks County. This same individual would go undetected in a state search if the crime was
committed minutes away in the state of New Jersey. Even if you have the correct county or
state, you still may get incorrect information because of clerical errors. Presently, there is
no nationwide criminal history check available to the private sector.
You must also recognize that criminal records do not take into consideration the percent-
age of individuals who commit serious crimes and are never caught. Nor does it consider
the ones caught compared with those actually found guilty, for whom a criminal record
would actually be available. Also, many states do not report arrests that are 3 or more years
old and have not been adjudicated.
Effective Inter
viewing and Interrogation Techniques
233
# 2011, Elsevier Ltd.
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15. PRE-EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEWING
Drug tests can confirm only recent use of illegal substances. Most employee thefts go
undetected, and even those discovered would usually not be divulged by the previous
employer if contacted out of fear of reprisal.
It is the applicant who knows if he ever committed a serious crime. It is the applicant
who knows the extent of his drug use, honesty, employment history, and so on. It is the
applicant who provides the most useful information available to us. The question is not,
where do we look, but how do we get the applicant to tell us the truth? The following
points will maximize your ability to accomplish this:
• Plant seeds for truth and gain rapport
• Ask assumptive questions
• Exaggerate the problem
• Share
• Ask projective questions
The first thing the interviewer must do is plant the seeds for truth. This includes devel-
oping rapport with the applicant and giving the applicant a reason to tell the truth.
Over the past 30 years, the following presentation has been very helpful to the authors in
establishing the atmosphere for a truthful interview:
This process is designed to identify one out of ten applicants who have engaged in serious unacceptable
past behavior. Nine out of ten applicants should do well, but only seven do! Two of these nine applicants
who should do well deliberately withhold, or lie about, information that is later uncovered during our
investigation. Usually this information would not have been serious enough to have affected their chance
for employment; however, the fact that they did not tell the truth shows a lack of either integrity or maturity on their part, and they are eliminated from consideration.
FIGURE 15.1
15. PRE-EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEWING
235
Therefore, it is extremely important that you answer every question truthfully. Your background inves
tigation is only one component of the employment decision. I am not a saint. I do not expect you to be a
saint! However, I do expect you to be truthful!
The second requirement is for the interviewer to use assumptive questions during
the interview, which are given power by telling the applicant that the truthfulness of the
answers will be checked. The interviewer always assumes the applicant did something,
and it is up to the applicant to deny it. This does not require a forceful or challenging inter-
view style; it merely means that rather than ask, “Have you ever been fired from a job?” we
ask, “When we check with your past employers (implying the information will be verified),
and certainly now is your opportunity to tell your side of it, how many will say you were
fired (assumptive)?”
Third, we can exaggerate numbers. For example, if an applicant was late for work
15 times in the past year, and we asked the applicant, “How many times were you late
for work in the past 12 months?” what are the chances they would honestly answer us
“15 times”? We think you would agree this would be unlikely. However, if we ask, “When
we check with your employers and your employee records, how many times will we find
you were late for work in the past 12 months: 100, 50, 20, 10, 5?” In this case, because
we started with an exaggerated number (100) there is a much more likely chance that the
applicant will give a truer answer.
We can also increase the number of admissions we receive by appearing to share infor-
mation with the applicant and giving the applicant the perception that we expect an
answer. At our seminars we often begin by having the participants sit back to back, in pairs.
They are then instructed to engage in a conversation about who they are and why they are
there, without looking at each other. This, we explain, is auditory communication without
nonverbal or kinesic information. They are then told to turn their chairs, and continue the
conversation, now receiving auditory and nonverbal information. Last, they are told to join
hands, now receiving auditory, nonverbal, and kinesic information.
At one seminar the group was too large to make the exercise practical, so we asked two
participants to come up front to engage in the exercise for the group. One turned out to be a
special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the other a director of security
for an Atlantic City casino. They were instructed to sit back to back and tell each other who
they were, why they were there, and a little about themselves.
They shared very little information, and sat in silence. One of the authors then wrote on a
pad, “Tell him about your family,” and held it up in front of the Security Director. The
Security Director then stated, “I have been married for 6 years, and just recently had a baby
boy. It’s the greatest thing that ever happened to me.” What do you think the FBI agent did?
He told the Security Director about his marital life.
The pad in front of the Security Director now read, “Tell him about your educational
background.” The Security Director stated, “I went to Temple University and have a mas-
ter’s degree in Criminal Justice.” What do you think the FBI agent said? Yes, he told about
his education.
Next, the pad in front of the Security Director said, “Tell him you tried marijuana once in
high school, and didn’t like it.” The Security Director read the statement, and what do you
think the FBI agent did? Wrong! He didn’t tell about his illegal drug experimentation.
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15. PRE-EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEWING
He broke out in a cold sweat, and stood up saying he didn’t feel comfortable doing this
exercise anymore! He felt compelled to give something back, but couldn’t! When we tell
someone something, especially a secret about ourselves, there is an unstated agreement
they must give something back. This is called the “Law of Reciprocity.” How do we apply
this to our pre-employment interview? We already know we can increase information to the
question, “Have you ever used illegal drugs?” by asking an assumptive question that gives
an expectation for an answer, “Name the illegal drugs you have used.” We can now elicit
even more information by using the concept of “sharing.” For example, “I am from the
sixties; we were called ‘hippies.’ What I need you to do (expectation) is name every illegal
drug or narcotic you ever used, even if it was only marijuana once (assumptive), and I’ll let
you know when you beat me (sharing).”
Finally, as part of our interview process we also use Attitudinal and Projective questions.
As in the “Forensic Assessment Interview,” these questions give us an idea of the person’s
background. Here are some examples:
“If an employee is caught stealing, what do you think should happen to them?” (Projective)
“Do you think they should get a second chance?” (Projective)
“If you were the owner, and you caught an employee stealing cash, how much would they have to have
stolen before you would call the police and prosecute: $1, $5, $10, $25, $50, $100, $250, $500, $1,000, $5,000?”
(Attitudinal)
“How about if it was merchandise?” (Attitudinal)
It is very inte
resting when an applicant differs in the amounts they require between cash
and merchandise before they would prosecute. They probably select amounts that correlate
with and justify what they themselves have taken. An applicant selecting $1 in cash and
$250 in merchandise probably has stolen merchandise, and not cash. The amount they have
stolen is probably more than $100, and less than $250.
We end our interview with an After-Interview Interview. This concept is adapted from
Scientific Content Analysis, originated by Avinoam Sapir, of the Laboratory of Scientific
Interrogation, in Phoenix, Arizona:
• “How do you feel now that you have finished answering the questions in this interview?”
• “Should I believe all of your answers were truthful?” (The answer to this question should be
“Yes.”)
• “Give me one reason why.”
• “What would you say if the background investigation turns up evidence that proves you
lied about critical information?”
• “What were your emotions while completing the interview?”
• “Were you afraid?”
We would expect a truthful applicant to say “Yes” to the second question, and then say,
“I told the truth,” or “I didn’t lie,” to at least one of the questions in this portion of the
interview.
One of the laws that must be considered when performing pre-employment screening is
the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was passed in 1990 [1]. Several updates
have been made. In general the act was designed to prohibit discrimination and ensures
equal opportunity in employment for persons with disabilities. It applies to all state or local
15. PRE-EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEWING
237
governments and their agencies. ADA gives civil rights protections to individuals with dis-
abilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national
origin, age, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities
in public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local government
services, and telecommunications.
The Title I employment provisions apply to private employers, state and local govern-
Nathan J Gordon, William L Fleisher Page 34