A rapport-based alternative to the Reid Technique

For decades, accusatorial interrogation was common in American investigative training. Much of the field has moved. Here is where it moved, why, and what ASC teaches instead.

How we talk about the Reid Technique

The Reid Technique is commonly categorized by critics and researchers as an accusatorial interrogation model. Empirical research on accusatorial interrogation methods has found that such methods can increase the risk of false confessions, particularly when combined with coercive pressure, minimization, maximization, deception, or questioning of vulnerable suspects. Reid & Associates disputes the claim that the properly applied Reid Technique causes false confessions. ASC teaches the research-informed alternative: rapport-based, non-confrontational investigative interviewing, supported by research funded by the FBI’s High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), consistent with the Méndez Principles on Effective Interviewing (2021), and built on the research-supported Cognitive Interview (Fisher & Geiselman) and Strategic Use of Evidence (Granhag, Hartwig & colleagues).

ASC does not name or critique any other commercial training provider. The Reid Technique is named because it is the best-known example of what critics and researchers call the accusatorial category; the broader category is referred to generically.

Accusatorial interrogation vs. rapport-based investigative interviewing

The research the field converged on

Several bodies of research and guidance point the same way:

• Research funded by the FBI’s High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) includes a meta-analytic review (Meissner and colleagues, 2014) that found, in experimental studies, that an information-gathering approach preserved true confessions while reducing false ones, whereas accusatorial methods increased both; the authors urged caution because the number of studies was small.
• The Méndez Principles on Effective Interviewing (2021) set out non-coercive, rapport-based principles for investigative interviewing, drafted by an international group of experts co-chaired by former UN Special Rapporteur Juan E. Méndez.
• Fisher and Geiselman's Enhanced Cognitive Interview is one of the most extensively researched interviewing methods, shown to increase correct detail while keeping accuracy comparable.
• Strategic Use of Evidence, developed by Pär Anders Granhag, Maria Hartwig, and colleagues, is a research program on how and when to disclose evidence so that the account can be tested against it.
• The PEACE framework, developed in England and Wales, was introduced in England and Wales in the early 1990s as a non-accusatory, information-gathering approach, and has shaped interviewing guidance in many other countries.

The law is moving too

At least ten states have enacted laws restricting deceptive interrogation of minors: Illinois and Oregon (2021); California, Utah, and Delaware (2022); Indiana, Nevada, Colorado, and Connecticut (2023); and Minnesota (2024), with more, including New York, under active consideration. For investigators, prosecutors, and the agencies that employ them, the direction of these laws is clear: deceptive tactics with juveniles are increasingly restricted, and statements they produce face closer scrutiny. The Juvenile Interrogation Laws tracker lists each statute and its bill citation.

What PEACE is, and where ASC fits

PEACE is an established framework for investigative interviewing. Its five phases organize the work before, during, and after an interview: Planning and Preparation; Engage and Explain; Account, Clarification and Challenge; Closure; and Evaluation. It provides a structure for gathering and examining information while maintaining a professional, fair approach.

Teach To Talk and the Adaptive Strategies Compass™ share several principles with PEACE: preparation, rapport, open-minded inquiry, careful listening, and the pursuit of accurate information. Their distinctive emphasis is on how the interviewer thinks, communicates, and selects an approach as the conversation develops. PEACE gives the interview its ethical structure. Teach To Talk builds the readiness work into Engage and Explain: the account standard is taught, rehearsed with the Pen Standard, and verified through performance before the account begins. The RETURN Sequence carries out Closure.

Teach To Talk is a complete investigative interviewing method built on one idea: before you ask a person for an important account, teach them how the conversation works, and teach the interviewer how to protect what they say. One standard for victims, witnesses, and suspects. It underlies every ASC course. The interviewer works to understand the person’s perspective, listens to understand rather than to confirm a theory, and holds a clear purpose while responding to what the conversation requires.

The Adaptive Strategies Compass is the navigation tool inside Teach To Talk. When an interview starts to struggle, it tells you which way to turn. Its eight directions (Teach, Listen, Retrieve, Clarify, Adapt, Re-engage, Test, and Route) each answer one reason an interview struggles, and established methods sit inside them as credited tools: the Cognitive Interview in Retrieve, Strategic Use of Evidence in Test, and the ACCESS Model (Shepherd & colleagues) in Route. The Compass helps an interviewer choose an approach suited to the person, the information sought, and the difficulty in front of them. An incomplete account, for example, is a decision point: does the person need a clearer question, more processing time, help retrieving a memory, or room to explain a concern about disclosing? Is there an inconsistency to clarify? The Compass is built to help the interviewer examine those possibilities, choose a response, and then judge whether it improved the exchange.

These fit together. PEACE provides the overall interview structure. Teach To Talk sets the standard. The Cognitive Interview, Strategic Use of Evidence, and ACCESS run on it. The Adaptive Strategies Compass decides which leads.

An honest boundary: ASC’s courses incorporate selected principles and practices consistent with PEACE, but they are not structured as comprehensive instruction in every phase of the PEACE model. They are best understood as training in Teach To Talk and the Adaptive Strategies Compass, drawing on established interviewing research and methods, rather than as a complete PEACE curriculum.

What ASC teaches instead

ASC was built from the inside, by a 24-year veteran of the New York State Police who was trained in accusatorial interrogation, saw a court suppress a substantial portion of a homicide interview he took part in, and built the alternative in response. The result is Teach To Talk and the Adaptive Strategies Compass, the rapport-based, research-informed interviewing method taught in every ASC course.

The flagship law enforcement program, From Information to Evidence, teaches the full methodology; the Nunez case is the case that built it; and Myths vs. Realities walks through the research point by point.