Trauma-Informed Victim Interviewing and Rapport-Based Suspect Interviews

Law Enforcement ONLY Training 

Registration begins at 8am.

WVFRIS is pleased to offer lodging scholarships to sworn officers attending the pre-symposium and symposium events. You must register on Eventbrite AND complete a scholarship request, found HERE.

Trauma-Informed Victim Interviewing and Rapport-Based Suspect Interviews

As police officers, we understand suspects are not usually inclined to tell us the truth without careful and deliberate work on our part. Therefore, we take classes on detecting and overcoming deception, and motivating honesty. With victims and witnesses, however, we often assume we can just walk up, start firing off questions, and learn what we need to know. When we are talking to people in trauma, however, this assumption is mistaken. Worse, if we fail to conduct trauma-informed interviews, we may mistake trauma for deception. Feeling disbelieved and often re-traumatized by their interactions with law enforcement, victims and witnesses tell us less of the truth, and then disconnect from the justice system. They don’t return calls or show up for court. Their cases go cold, and the perpetrators overwhelmingly continue to do harm.

The bulk of this training will focus on trauma-informed principles for interviewing crime victims and witnesses. A core tenet of this training is that trauma often exists on both sides of the police/public interaction; understanding the way trauma affects us as cops helps us recognize and respond more empathetically and effectively to trauma in our community members. 

Just as rapport, empathy, and understanding are key to getting victims and witnesses to trust us and tell us the whole truth, they are also key in getting the truth from suspects. We will therefore spend a portion of this training exploring rapport and empathy in suspect interviewing. We will watch and discuss these tools in interviews with a serial rapist and a serial arsonist. 

Whether you consider yourself soft-hearted or hard-nosed, you will enjoy this training if you are looking for effective, ethical tools to get the truth!

As a result of this session, participants will be better able to:

• Understand the neurobiology of trauma and its implications for behavior, memory, and mood

• Build trust, reduce fear, and restore control in traumatized persons – before asking the first investigative question

• Phrase and sequence interview questions to maximize information and minimize re-traumatization

• Leave victims and witnesses feeling supported, regardless of justice system outcomes 

• Use rapport and empathy to motivate suspects to tell the truth

• Gain practical tools for managing vicarious trauma in the interview room