The Interactional Dynamics of Eliciting a Confession in a Dutch Police Interrogation

Abstract

In this article, I examine the step-by-step unfolding of the interaction in a police interrogation in which an initially denying suspect is eventually persuaded to change her story and confess to a theft. First, the interrogator and the suspect are engaged in some interactional bickering in which the interrogator's expressions of distrust alternate with acceptance, and the suspect's responses range from defensiveness to compliance. Next, the interrogator attempts to undermine the suspect's version of the events by pointing at her lack of a "good" explanation for her acts, and he contrasts this with an alternative version that has a "logical" explanation. The third episode is characterized by interactional caution and withholding in which both participants appear to wait for the other to come forward. The interrogator provides the suspect with a "puzzle," and the suspect guesses at what she thinks the interrogator wants to hear. In the final episode, the rationale of previous activities is revealed. The suspect is afforded the opportunity to demonstrate on the spot that she is the good person she claims to be by admitting to have lied and, by implication, by confessing to the theft.