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When police question suspects, they regularly present evidence in the form of witness statements or technical evidence (e.g. phone logs). Investigators report that this can be a challenging task, especially when the evidence does not match the suspect's statement (Risan et al. 2025). Previous research has shown that disclosure of evidence is often associated with a decline in cooperation and sometimes the development of confrontation (Kelly et al. 2025). However, there is a lack of research describing how such hostility develops. This paper aims to address this question by analyzing the gradual development of hostility in a single investigative interview with a suspect speaking Norwegian as a second language. The interview is selected from a corpus of 80+ audio and video recordings of authentic investigative interviews.
The guidelines for investigative interviewing recommend that investigators should make suspects aware of the grounds for suspicion and give them the opportunity to refute them. This should preferably be done by means of an ‘open question’ (State attorney’s working group, 2013).
The analysis shows that in the case analyzed, the investigator starts by doing what the guidelines say. However, in following up the answers, he soon starts to ask argumentative and critical questions that explicitly or implicitly attribute guilt to the suspect. There are also responses that express doubts about the interviewee’s truthfulness. Such questions and responses often contribute to the suspect starting to defend himself and argue his innocence rather than providing new information about the case. In this way, these actions are counterproductive in gathering relevant information. They also compromise the interrogators' neutrality and go against the ‘presumption of innocence’ that should be guiding the investigators’ interviewing.
An example is provided here. The interviewee is suspected of having chased his ex-partner in a car and having run over her. The police investigator has presented statements by two witnesses who observed the incident. The interviewee has previously reported that what happened is that he crashed the car in a wall and then panicked, and that he does not remember what happened after that.
01 PO: hva tenker du om at [to uavhengige ] vitner fortelle:r=
what are your thoughts about two independent witnesses telling
02 SU: [nei altså de:t]
well tha:t
03 PO: =det her?
this?
04 SU: altså hvis je:g var (.) ute etter på >kjøre (henne,)<
so if I: was trying to run over her
05 hvorfor kjørte ikke jeg på henne når ikke hun- hun gikk
why didn't I run into her when she crossed
06 over veien?
the street?
07 (0.5)
08 PO: ja [ det kan eh: det kan jo finnes ] veldig=
well there may uh: there may be very
09 SU: [hun gikk jo rett over veien, hvorfor kjørt-]
she was walking straight across the street why didn’t I-
10 PO: =mange grunn[er til Ola at du ikkje ]=
many reasons Ola that you didn't
11 SU: [nei ikke sant hvorfor gjorde jeg ikke-]
no, right, why didn't I
12 PO: =gjorde det der?
do it there?
13 SU: nei men ikke sant, hvorfor eh: skulle jeg: (0.6) treffet
no but see, why: would I (0.6) hit
14 en fortau, (.) fortau og så vegg, (0.5) og ødelagt bilen
a sidewalk and then wall and destroyed the car
The police investigator starts out by a question that is in line with the recommendations. The suspect’s answer takes the form of a ‘rhetorical question’, that is, a question with a purportedly self-evident answer. However, the investigator does not treat the question as rhetorical but instead provides an answer (lines 8-12). This answer is disaffiliative in that it expresses an opposing stance to the one implied by the suspect. In addition, this response is produced in a lengthy competitive overlap with the suspect trying to elaborate on his answer. The suspect also tries come in at a potential TRP in line 11, but the investigator once again continues his turn without ceding to the suspect. In this way, both the form and the content of the investigator’s turn is disaffiliative and displays a confrontational stance to the suspect’s account.
References
Kelly, C. E., Parker, M., Meehan, N., & McClary, M. (2025). Evidence presentation in suspect interviews: A review of the literature. The Police Journal, 98(1), 112-128.
Risan, P., Myklebust, T., Bjerknes, O. T., & Oxburgh, G. (2025). Police interviewers’ experiences of the Tactical Interview Model (TIM): an exploratory study of suspect interviewing in Norway. Psychology, Crime & Law, 31(4), 439-461.
State attorney’s working group [Riksadvokatens arbeidsgruppe] (2013). The methodology of investigative interviewing in the police [Avhørsmetodikk i politiet].
