The Art of Confession by Reciprocity
Written By: Charles Williams, Retired FBI Special Agent, President & CEO of HDI Investigation & Executive Protection Service, Inc
I know you are saying to yourself "why should I take time out of my busy day to read this stuff?" You are probably tired and it has been a long day and you are not sure how reading this will put money in your pocket. So why take the time to do it? I guarantee that if you take time to read this article (and any of my other articles), it will make you a much better investigator and great investigators are paid well for what they do.
Follow this story: Two other agents and I were responsible for handling an informant who was a key witness in a major high profile case we were working in the FBI. We had been handling this witness for approximately two months and the United States Assistant District Attorneys trying the case had reason to believe that the witness was lying. However, no matter how hard they tried, they could not get the witness to confess to the lie; even under the threat of charging him with perjury; nor the offer of dropping the charge and let him go free if he would confess that he had been lying to the government. After numerous threats and offers of forgiveness of the charges, he would not confess to lying. This particular witness had been staying at a hotel during his stay in New York and we only had one more night to get him to confess before taking him to the airport the following day. The evening before he was due to fly out, I was tasked with doing nothing more than sitting, watching and listening while two other agents threatened, shouted angrily, played good cop and bad cop, and called him names….all in an attempt to get him to confess. They made statements like, "John you piece of garbage, we know you're lying so you need to come clean and tell us the truth." Needless to say, the witness insisted that he had not been lying and refused to change his story.
The two agents asked me if I wanted to talk to John myself. I declined and told them that I would sit this one out. I did agree to do them a favor by picking John up the next morning to drive him to the airport. I then left the hotel and drove home. As promised, the next morning, I picked up John and learned that he had not confessed under the pressure of the good cop, bad cop routine. The airport was less than 15 minutes from the hotel and before John and I had arrived at the airport, I had gotten a full confession from him. How did I do it? I used a strategy I like to call:
"Mastering the Art of Reciprocity"
My name is Charles Williams. I am founder and CEO of HDI Investigation. Before starting HDI, I had been a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent for more than 23 years. After graduating from the FBI Academy, I was eventually assigned to the New York City office. During that time I gained invaluable investigative experience in the area of violent crimes, fugitive task force, foreign counter-intelligence, national security and civil rights. I also worked on the 1998 United States Embassy bombings in Tanzania as well as World Trade Center bombing in 1993 and the bombing of the World Trade Center Towers on September 11, 2001. I have received numerous investigative commendations from the Director of the FBI and the United States Attorney General's Office as well as numerous other agencies. I was also an FBI Certified Assessor, undercover certified agent, and a member of the FBI New York Office Crisis Negotiation Reserve Team.
Having worked on countless fugitive cases - as well as numerous Top Ten Fugitive investigations - I have participated in over 500 arrests and interviewed thousands of individuals in cases in which the FBI had an interest. My reputation has been built on my ability to develop informants and in getting information and cooperation from witnesses and people in the community.
Throughout my career as an FBI Special Agent and now as a Private Investigator, there is one thing I have come to realize: Most investigators do not understand how to conduct an interview to elicit a confession and many do not know how to solicit the help of strangers to achieve their investigative goals. What the two agents did in that hotel room was typical. I have witnessed it over and over again. They were so committed to their rigid model of interviewing and interrogating, that they had no idea who they were talking to and what he needed from them in order to give them what they wanted.
This situation was essentially what I like to call a "concentric interview". A concentric interview begins and ends with the interviewer and is based on what the interviewer wants....period. The concentric interviewer is at the center of the show, doing all the talking and the interview is really all about him. Why? Because he has not taken time to learn anything about the interviewee. He is too busy talking about himself and treating the interviewee despicably to get results. Concentric interviews get nowhere because they keep coming back to the center which is the interviewer himself…and what he wants.
Mastering The Art of Reciprocity requires that you:
1. Learn how to assess the person you are planning to engage.
2. Learn how to identify the critical elements involved in getting a confession and/or cooperation and assistance necessary to help make a case.
3. Learn how to use those critical elements to develop the strategy that will give you the best chance for confession or cooperation.
4. Learn how not to get caught up in a concentric interview.
5. Learn that great interviewers do not interview - they engage.
6. Learn that you are searching for subject's intangible needs and if you give it to him in the right package he will give you something in return.
Understand that if you are already good at getting confessions and the cooperation of strangers, then this information will help you systematize and organize what you have been going to make your efforts more effective. If this is all new to you, this information will give you a place to start and will help you get up-to-speed a lot faster, while avoiding the common pitfalls that overtake even experienced investigators.
Myths:
1. You can always tell a person is lying by the way he looks to his left or his right.
2. Money, power and threats always work.
3. Good Cop-Bad Cop always works because that's how they do it on TV.
Becoming a great communicator, who can modify the behavior of individuals, takes practice and experience. You can only intimidate someone if you have something to intimidate them with and if intimidation is your only technique, what are you going to do when it doesn't work? Strategies are developed as you go and the "tough guy" approach, material enrichment, or reduced jail time should not be your only alternative. Those are tactics that may or may not be used as part of your overall "strategy of engagement". Tactics should be deployed based on a holistic assessment of the individual you are engaging. Every person is unique and your interviewee is no exception.
Reciprocity is not based on a rigid interviewing model, material exchange, or threats and intimidation. It is based on conducting a search for: The intangible nature and needs of a person
Reciprocity is based on empirical experience and personal observations, which when combined, I affectionately call, "Streetology." Streetology sums up what I have learned from people I know on the street; as well as from some of the grizzled old veteran FBI agents of my day; along with my own 26 years of investigative experience on the streets of New York City.
The Foundation of Reciprocity:
During my FBI days, working on the challenging and sometimes unforgiving streets of New York City, I worked on the fugitive squad closing cases. On one particular case, word had gotten out that I had gotten a guy to confess to his involvement in a murder wherein he had helped his cousin stab a young woman more than sixty times. One of the new guys on the squad asked me how I got a guy to confess to such a heinous crime and why so many people came forward to cooperate or become witnesses. I explained how I did it, starting with the murder's confession.
- First, I had to get to KNOW him; and
- Second, I had to GIVE him something he needed.
The suspect confessed to me within an hour of our meeting. In fact, I picked him up in Queens and he confessed before we got to Manhattan. New agent asked, "How did you get to know him so well and why would he confess without you giving up or offering him anything?" I told the agent, "I never make promises I can't keep and I don't believe in lying". I then asked if he ever heard of the word "Reciprocity". He said he knew what the word meant. I told him that knowing what it means and understanding it in terms of empowerment are two different things.
Webster's New World Dictionary defines Reciprocity as:
1. Reciprocal state or relationship; mutual action, dependence, etc.
2. The act of reciprocating; mutual exchange. Reciprocate is to give and get or to make some sort of return for something done.
The New Agent stated that he understood that if he gives a guy on the street some money, there is a good chance that he will give up some answers in return. Also, if he offers a guy a break on a jail sentence, there is a good chance he will agree to become a state witness against his friend. It is true, that sometimes, you have that kind of leverage. However, there are just as many times when you don't or the person is simply motivated by money at the expense of developing a relationship with law enforcement. What do you do? Here were my challenges:
- No money to offer
- No power to reduce jail time
- Very little time to get the job done
Mutual Exchange
I were to give you twenty dollars, something will click in your mind that signals you to give me something of similar value in return. Of course, you may decide to not give me anything in return, but it will not because you don't think you should. I used to see one of my cousins all the time and one day he asked to $50. I gave him $60 and told him to pay me back whenever he got the money. It has been over 12 months and I haven't seen him. I haven't seen him because he knows I gave him something and he is supposed to give me something back that would equate to a mutual exchange. He hasn't paid me back but he knows he should pay me and that is the power of reciprocity.
If I say "Good Morning" to you, you are compelled to give me something back, such as saying "Good Morning" to me. If I hold the door open for you, you are compelled to say something like, "Thank you." If you do a favor for me I feel like I have to do a favor for you. If you befriend me, I return the favor and become your friend. If you hate me, I will hate you back. That's human nature.
An agent friend of mind called me the other day and said, "Charles if I make any business contacts in my new position I am going to push them your way because I didn't forget that you put in a good word for me and helped me get onto one of the best squads in the bureau." I did that favor for him more than ten years ago and he still feels like he owes me something. He was compelled by some inner force to fulfill the mutual exchange that took place within a relationship that had been formed between the two of us years ago.
Power of Reciprocity is based on the Exchange
Step back now and consider this: Who holds the power in a relationship or exchange?
By power I mean, who is influencing whose behavior? Power, in any relationship, is in the hands of the giver…not the receiver. That is why it is always "Better to give than to receive", particularly if you know how to use the power of the giver. You see when you follow a rigid concentric interview system you are not giving the subject anything of value, so you have no power or control over where the interview will go. Do not think of the interview in terms of a stereotypical scenario built around a thousand questions. Learn to think of an interview in terms of engaging the subject in order to determine what intangible can be given away which will empower YOU as the giver. Ninety- nine percent of the time, the subject will not even be aware of nor will he be able to articulate what you specifically gave him or why he even decided to tell you what he told you. There is a biblical scripture that goes something like this "Give and it shall be given back to you pressed down, shaken together and running over". In the investigative world, those words are true. To give is the key to power and control in an interview or witness/suspect engagement.
