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Interrogation Tactics

Techniques > Interrogation > Interrogation Tactics

Interrogation in practice ranges from domestic questioning to legal investigation to military detail. These contexts and the legal and moral frameworks involved will constraint the methods and styles that are permissible. Professional interrogators have a potentially large number of techniques at their disposal and the more extreme methods are only very briefly described here.

Already Know: Say that you already know what is required.
Authority and Power: Play on symbolic authority.
Dire Consequences: Exaggerate the bad things that may happen.
Direct Question: Just ask the question.
Easiest Way: Exchange required information for release.
Extreme Tactics: Used in military and other areas.
False Replay: Repeat their story incorrectly.
Friends and Family: Leverage emotional relationships.
Good Cop, Bad Cop: Classic hurt and rescue.
Informality: Being their friend and catching them in vulnerable moments.
Inquisition: Sustaining an ideology through confession.
Lie Detectors: Using a polygraph or other machines to detect lies.
News: Allow them filtered contact with the outside world.
Nobody Cares: Show them that they have been abandoned.
Only Way: There is one choice: confession or some form of extinction.
Rapid Fire: Ask many questions, quickly.
Silence: Just wait. That's all.
Story Reverse: Get them to tell you their story backwards.
Sympathy: Be sympathetic to their situation.
Truth Switching: To identify lies.

Interrogation Tactics

See also