# How do the police get suspects to talk to them?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 17, 2010, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611 "2010-06-17T23:02:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/21 "2010-06-18T06:20:57Z")
I don’t do criminal law, but I do remember my criminal law classes, and my professor said, as others here have said, that criminals are so dumb it is almost not fathomable to normal people how dumb they can be. My few encounters with former criminals show this to be true: the ones that appear smart have managed to learn to shut up so people cannot tell how stupid they are.
I have found in civil litigation that when conducting a deposition of an opposing party or witness affiliated with the opposing party that what gets them to talk truthfully are a combination of several things: 1) convince them that you are thoroughly prepared and do a Colombo when you can’t be; 2) Remind them that this is under oath and it is a felony to lie, even when it is to their economic disadvantage; 3) Give them your full attention when they are speaking and treat them with civility and respect; 4) Take your time and let them know that you will and must take all the time that is required.
If you treat somebody with respect and really pay attention, they will volunteer things that will make their own lawyers lose their poker faces with frustration. And you know that if they never volunteer anything that they have a lot to hide. Everybody but seasoned testifiers wants to volunteer things.
I’ve taken a lot of depositions where lawyers were the witnesses. I took the deposition of a lawyer that had tried hundreds of cases and taken thousands of depositions himself. He started with short yes and no answers, but with the above method, he opened up, even though he knew better and said so when he was doing it.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/22 "2010-06-18T14:09:31Z")
> [@Noel\_Prosequi](#):
>
> I think Billdo has a great deal of the reason. Self justification is a powerful motivator to speak. And people realise that persuading the police of innocence (which they think might be a good idea) requires looking open and cooperative - as soon as you put the shutters up, you know that you have lost that advantage.
>
> Also, often what police get from an interview is not a confession but a provable lie of the “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” type when they know they have DNA there. That can be incriminating too, even if the person was hoping it would have exactly the opposite effect.
>
> Generally, people aren’t wired for awkward silences. They know that if they are accused of something in ordinary social interactions, they would be expected to respond. The police use those ordinary social expectations well.
>
> Some police I know love silences. They ask a question, get an answer (a denial) then just sit there and stare disbelievingly and say nothing. Eventually, suspect fills in the silence, to add further detail or to explain or expand, whatever. He who breaks first loses in that game, because once you have the suspect engaging in conversation, the usual social norms kick in, and the suspect becomes as garrulous as he would in any ordinary conversation, and the police can then lead them on and trap them, or use whatever other trick they have up their sleeve. As long as you get them talking.
>
> And some start wanting to talk so they can tell a lie, and as they go, they have to adjust and modify and fall back until it is all a hopeless disaster. “I wasn’t there. Alright, I was there, but I didn’t see her. Alright, I did see her, but I didn’t have sex with her. Alright, I did have sex with her but I didn’t rape her. Alright, she did say no, but I didn’t believe her.” Some people seem to think that for each version they give, they are entitled to a restart, so that only the final version gets used against them, and not all the earlier false starts which put the lie to the whole account.
>
> People have an instinctive sense of what part of an accusation being made has the ring of truth so that a blanket denial will be implausible, and try to fit an excuse around it, not realising that their answer comes across as implausible and contrived, and they have admitted significant aspects of the complainant’s story.
>
> So I guess the answer is there are all sorts of reasons why people talk to police when they don’t have to. But saying I don’t want to speak is not as easy as you might think when it is all going down. Experienced crims have learned to do it, but first-timers (and most murderers are first-timers) are still caught up in the ordinary social expectations of conversation, where questions invite answers, and accusatory questions require a response.
>
> In my jurisdiction, the police did not video tape conversations until the mid 1980s. Prior to that, they were recorded in writing. Experienced defence lawyers here assumed as an absolute article of faith than no-one ever _really_ confessed (why on earth would you?), and the written documents were either fabrications made up like movie scripts out of whole cloth, or where there were signatures, the suspect was coerced. The whole criminal justice system, they thought, was being conducted on the basis of a giant fraud. Every single trial where there was a confession resulted in a huge fight about the genuineness of the confession.
>
> They were very much in favour of video-tapings, because they thought confessions would end.
>
> Instead, they were utterly astonished when they saw large numbers of videos of obviously uncoerced people confessing away happily. This was a shock to their world view.
>
> Nowadays, confessions are rarely challenged as they once were (again, speaking of my jurisdiction). That does not mean that all is hunky dory or there aren’t dodgy things done to induce them, etc. Just that a cultural assumption that no-one actually confesses has faded into the past.
The introduction of recordings and tapings led to another phenomena, where you had a confessions which were prima facie valid, but still worng. Especially with first time offenders (of whom murderers are the most common), the stress of the situation and questioning by the police even if not opressive in the classical scence led to false questions.
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### Author:  [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/23 "2010-06-18T14:37:23Z")
There was a case in Canada where the police tried to get a couple to admit (separately) to having murdered the man’s wife. At one point they presented a signed confession by the woman to the man; he knew it was phoney and laughed in their face. After the interrogation, he charged them with forgery. It went to the Canadian Supreme Court, who ruled that that sort of behaviour in interrogation was legal.
I recall one case in Canada where they had 3 confessions to a 2-person murder, the police were so effective. This is the downside of police being effective - with enough “social pressure” some people will say whatever you want to hear. At least with most criminals, that does not result in weekly orange and red alerts.
_“The force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded…”_
The other interesting thing - the police often promise “things will go easier if you confess.” In fact, according to one friend who worked in the courts, the outcome bore very little relation to whether you confessed, pled guilty, or had the full trial - as well it should not. Our justice system should not penalize you for insisting on your rights. What the police mean is things will go easier for them - with a confession, they don’t have to do as much investigative legwork. The police avoid making specific promises because they have no say anyway in the result.
As for the self-justification angle - yes, you see that all the time. Watch one of those stupid shows like Judge Judy. People say stuff like “They broke my phone so I went into their house the next day and stole their TV.” As if one wrong justified the other, or a break-and-enter crime is justified by an accident or deliberate vandalism… For some reason a crime is justified if there was sufficient provocation. As long as people are that ignorant of how the law works, stupidity will be the cops’ best friend.
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### Author:  [@MikeF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeF)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/24 "2010-06-18T15:11:51Z")
I am a retired detective, having worked primarily narcotics investigations but also having supervised a homicide squad. Drug cases were easy. You almost always had a tight case before talking to a suspect and they knew it. It was “Lets make a deal” from the gate. The main stumbling block was trying to overcome their fear of retaliation if they talked. I generally didn’t spend much time trying to convince them as there was always another potential informant just around the corner.
Murder cases were a whole different animal. Those are never tight cases, regardless of eye witnesses, video, forensic evidence or whatever. For one, you never know what evidence will get suppressed by some judge. For another, you absolutely never know what a jury will do. Because of that, an admissible confession is critical and investigators will go to great lengths to obtain one. There are many different strategies, most of which have been addressed above.
The bottom line is that you need to convince the suspect that it is in his best interest to talk to you. This could be for spiritual reasons, that it will make him feel better to get it off his chest, that this is the chance to get his side of the story out, that it was justified, that he’ll get less time, etc. Some of these are actually true.
Interrogation is truly an art form. Training includes reading body language (very important) and a great deal of psychology. I admit that I was never a great interviewer. It seems to me that some people are just naturals. Believe me, its not easy convincing some child killer that you understand why he did it and that he’s not such a bad guy.
In my state the entire interview has to be recorded on both audio and video tape. What I view as a good interview many will claim is psychological coercion. Am I coercing or convincing? What’s the difference? And yes, lo and behold, people do consent to searches even though they know drugs are present and people do confess to murders (often without much convincing). Its easy to say “Don’t talk to the police” when you’re not the one sitting in the box. When its your future on the line, its a whole different story.
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### Author:  [@SeaCanary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeaCanary)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/25 "2010-06-18T15:32:18Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> No I’m not, and you don’t need to have an insulting and smug tone, like you know I’m just some sort moron that you think you run into daily.
YAY !!!
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/26 "2010-06-18T15:48:30Z")
Not much to add to what **Noel Prosequi** and **MikeF** , in particular, have already said. People talk, even after being Mirandized, in order to get better treatment (even if illusory) from police, to justify or “explain” what they’ve done, to rat out someone else, or because they’re nervous, stupid, or just want to get something off their chest.
Criminals can be astonishingly, incredibly, cringeworthily dumb. You just wouldn’t believe some of the stuff they do. As a young prosecutor I once read a police report about a defendant who’d done something mind-bogglingly stoopid, and mentioned it to an older, wiser prosector. He wearily gestured to the courthouse around us and said, “Look around you. This building is a _monument_ to the proposition that people can be that stupid.”
When Obama was an Illinois state senator, one of the bills he wrote and got passed required police to videotape interrogations and confessions in homicide cases. I’ve never understood why police and prosecutors tend to resist such requirements - far more often than not, videotapes will be very useful to them at trial in showing that the suspect was not browbeaten or abused, and that the confession is truly voluntary.
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/27 "2010-06-18T16:01:47Z")
Damn. Something I can actually provide a good answer on, and it’s already been good-answered into the ground.
I review transcripts of interviews for a living from police departments across the country, and while I won’t get into specifics due to confidentiality reasons, I can at least confirm what everyone says. In general, criminals are both arrogant and dumb and therefore easy to manipulate. You wouldn’t _believe_ how many people go, “I’m fine, I don’t need no lawyer,” and then lie so embarrassingly badly that they’re caught out within 10 minutes.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/28 "2010-06-18T16:48:44Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> Instead, the Miranda warning (“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say…”) immediately became the stock dialogue to indicate arrest on t.v. and in movies, and everyone became so inured that they didn’t even listen to the words.
Right. I’ve noticed on both COPS and First 48 that some states(or cities) seem to require the police to say, “Do you understand the rights that I have read to you? Do you understand how they have been stated?”
Of course, everyone says, “Yes,” and the police move on. Some states require the police to say, “Knowing your rights, do you wish to speak to me at this point in time?”
Again, nearly everyone says, “Yes.”
> [@SeaCanary](#):
>
> YAY !!!
Thanks. I hate smug posts like that early one. They really have no place here. I half wondered if the poster thought First 48 was fictional, but I don’t think so.
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### Author:  [@ElectricZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElectricZ)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/29 "2010-06-18T19:08:58Z")
> [@pravnik](#):
>
> David Simon’s book _Homicide: a Year on the Killing Streets_ has an excellent description of the process, written from Simon’s year spent shadowing Baltimore Homicide detectives. You can read an excerpt [here](http://books.google.com/books?id=gf3Z9K2rb6AC&dq=david+simon+homicide+a+year+on+the+killing+streets&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=hMYaTJXPDIzcNs7u7NkF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=false) pages 204-206, but a lot of the good stuff is in the omitted pages immediately preceding that. Basically you presesnt the subject with a grim scenario of their guilt and what’s going to happen to them, but give them an “out” - a small glimmer of hope that they can escape this process unscathed, or at least as unscathed as possible. That “out” involves talking to you.
Here’s the same section as it played out on the TV show based on the book, _[Homicide: Life on the Streets.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyfN3dUluAY)_ I think they did a pretty good job of translating it to television.
That book was a fantastic read.
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### Author:  [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)
#### Post date: [June 18, 2010, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/30 "2010-06-18T19:28:17Z")
So… I guess “The First 48” is a cop show.
I thought it was about the history of the USA, prior to Alaska and Hawaii. They need to advertise more.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/31 "2010-06-19T18:33:56Z")
> [@ElectricZ](#):
>
> Here’s the same section as it played out on the TV show based on the book, _[Homicide: Life on the Streets.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyfN3dUluAY)_ I think they did a pretty good job of translating it to television.
>
> That book was a fantastic read.
Apparently the show “The Wire” was based on it as well. I haven’t seen it but have been meaning to - everyone keeps telling me it’s great.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/32 "2010-06-19T18:43:11Z")
Another one chiming in to confirm that most people who are arrested are as thick as pig shit, and don’t know when to keep their mouths shut.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/33 "2010-06-19T20:09:44Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Another thing to remember is that a surprising number of people think that they can just talk their way out of anything. They’ll make up some (they think) plausible explanation of why they didn’t do wrong, and think that if they present it convincingly enough, the authorities will believe them.
Exactly (and I used to do this for a living). You just give most people a chance to tell their side of the story and they’ll talk. They’ll confess peripherally to committing the crime in their attempts to explain at length why they committed it.
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### Author:  [@enigmatic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enigmatic)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2010, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/34 "2010-06-19T22:48:33Z")
I have a less than honest cousin who managed to use his electronic retail job to steal a truly embarrassing quantity of goods (about £15K) before they inevitably caught up to him.
Forget the police he confessed damn near everything to the store loss prevention guy, cause presumably if he hadn’t have agreed to that interview they might have fired him or something :smack:. I saw the transcript, at one point he described himself as “the brains of the operation”, he signed a statement provided by the store indicating what he took which I’m actually pretty sure was just a list of all the stuff missing from their inventory and included stuff that he hadn’t taken.
The other guy clammed up and ended up getting away scot free, but my cousin is still convinced that this guy ratted him out (after his full confession), why?, because the police said so. He didn’t even try to talk to a lawyer until a week or so later. I’ve never really talked to him about this stuff because I sure as hell don’t want to end up giving him _pointers_, but damn.
The kicker… my cousin was hoping to join the police force, he actually missed his interview because that was the day he was arrested.
Many (most?) crimes are never going to be committed by smart people to begin with, and you just can’t believe how stupid people can get, even if you happen to be related to them ☹
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### Author:  [@Covered\_In\_Bees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Covered_In_Bees)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2010, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/35 "2010-06-19T22:51:12Z")
I watch The First 48 quite frequently also and it seems to me that most people do not like actually killing each other. No matter how “hard core gangsta” they are and the guilt just eats them up and they confess because they know what they did was wrong.
Other times they’re just stupid I guess.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/36 "2010-06-20T01:36:15Z")
> [@Keeve](#):
>
> So… I guess “The First 48” is a cop show.
>
> I thought it was about the history of the USA, prior to Alaska and Hawaii. They need to advertise more.
Heh. It’s actually about the first 48 hours of murder investigations. They go past that, but they say most murders that will be solved get their major leads in the first 48 hours.
> [@Covered\_In\_Bees](#):
>
> I watch The First 48 quite frequently also and it seems to me that most people do not like actually killing each other. No matter how “hard core gangsta” they are and the guilt just eats them up and they confess because they know what they did was wrong.
> .
I have noticed that, too. They are there, waiting for the police, and when the police arrive, they crack.
I would think they’d be at home thinking, “If the police come, demand a lawyer immediately.”
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/37 "2010-06-20T02:30:44Z")
There are tons of manuals you can look into.
Generally it seems to run as:
Get the subject disoriented
Make them as dependent, isolated and passive as possible
Manipulate them with a ton of tricks (pretending you have evidence you don’t, good cop/bad cop, offer deals you can’t follow up on in exchange for a confession, offer them an opportunity to justify their acts or get them off their chest, let them lie enough to hang themselves, etc) into giving incriminating evidence.
My understanding is that professional criminals and white collar criminals tend to clam up. it is more the one timers who end up confessing.
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### Author:  [@pinkyvee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkyvee)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/38 "2010-06-20T14:52:08Z")
Thanks for asking this question.
I learned quite a lot reading the answers.
I even learned something from the snide & uncalled for swipe at your intelligence.
Thanks to everyone else who responded and answered.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/39 "2010-06-20T16:22:23Z")
> [@](#):
>
> My understanding is that professional criminals and white collar criminals tend to clam up. it is more the one timers who end up confessing.
A lot of truth to this. Broadly speaking, crimes can be divided into two categories - those committed for profit and everything else. People who commit crimes like murder, rape, assault, arson, vandalism, etc are generally not looking to make a profit. So their crime probably had some personal reason that the average person would find irrational. And more often than not these people want to explain why they did what they did.
But people who commit a crime like robbing liquor stores or selling drugs or embezzling the pension fund may be completely rational. They may have just decided that committing a crime offered an opportunity to obtain money within an acceptable level of risk. And these people, being rational, are going to realize they have nothing to gain by explaining what they did.
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### Author:  [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-the-police-get-suspects-to-talk-to-them/543611/40 "2010-06-20T16:49:06Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Another one chiming in to confirm that most people who are arrested are as thick as pig shit, and don’t know when to keep their mouths shut.
Cite? Or is this just based on your own personal experience?
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