Training Police Investigators to Interview to Detect False Intentions

This study is the first to investigate police investigators’ adherence to, and the effectiveness of, a training program for detecting true and false intentions. Experienced police investigators (N = 53) were either trained or not trained in how to interview to discriminate between true and false intentions. All investigators interviewed mock suspects (N = 53), of which half lied and half told truth about their intentions. Both subjective and objective measures showed that the trained investigators interviewed in line with the training received. That is, a large proportion asked about the planning of the stated intentions. Noteworthy, none of untrained investigators reported to have posed such questions for strategic purposes. The trained investigators reached a higher detection accuracy level (65 %) than their untrained colleagues (55 %), however not significantly. Given that the investigators adhered to the training, this training package is a viable starting point for developing more effective training programs.