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TM
CORROBORATION-BASED
INTERVIEWING (CBI)
TM
Science-Based Interview Training
with an Operational Purpose
How can investigators and law enforcement agencies assess whether an interview training is science-based or not?
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EVOCAVI's Science-Advisor, Simon Oleszkiewicz PhD, will lead viewers through a basic understanding of how research is conducted and provides novel guidelines to begin evaluating whether an interview training is science-based.
ABOUT EVOCAVI
Since being founded in 2020, EVOCAVI has facilitated science-based interview training and research projects consisting of practitioner/researcher collaborations to translate the research on interviewing into operational strategies for investigators. These collaborations led to the development of many of our interview training programs that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Over the last five years, we have provided these science-based interview training programs to federal, state, and local law enforcement investigators, corporate security investigators, threat mitigation units, conviction integrity units, and operational psychologists supporting the military.
OUR SERVICES
OUR PRINCIPLES FOR TRAINING
A PROACTIVE MINDSET
Our interview courses are designed to help investigators transition from being traditional reactive interviewers to proactive interviewers. We emphasize the importance of adopting an investigative mindset, with a clear interview and evidence disclosure strategy, seeking out informational objectives, while eliciting perspectives whenever possible.
OPERATIONALIZED TACTICS
Investigators tend to dislike interview training that focuses on theoretical concepts they cannot relate to or operationalize effectively. We agree! With the assistance of our science advisors, we have translated the research into strategies and tactics that are relevant to the operational realities investigators encounter during interviews on the front end and during legal proceedings on the back end.
YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW
We encourage investigators to be curious and inquisitive at all times during an interview, no matter how strong their evidence is or how much evidence they have. We emphasize not just being curious about the incident, but especially about the person being interviewed; you don't know what you don't know. Accusations and confrontation of any type do not promote or sustain the gathering of reliable information.
CORROBORATION
CENTERED
We do not teach subjective tactics focusing on deception. Our courses emphasize corroboration strategies to assess and corroborate the reliability of the evidence and information, enhancing the integrity of the overall investigation. Prosecutors whom we invited to our training praised the use of these corroboration strategies over tactics focused on deception.
COLLABORATION DRIVEN
We teach investigators the importance of using social dynamics and trust to identify and create opportunities for collaboration with interviewees. We emphasize collaboration to equalize the power differential in the interview room, provide autonomy, and create a more comfortable and open environment for the interviewee to decide what they feel comfortable discussing.
INNOVATIVE TRAINING
In 2018, we collaborated with researchers to develop and test a 5-day science-based interview training program for U.S. law enforcement investigators. We have continued to innovate with our Proximity-Based Evidence Disclosure (PED) and our new Cooperation Assessment Protocol (CAP) courses.