Why Agencies Switch to Science-Based Interview Techniques: A Conversation with Mark Fallon

Can you walk us through how your experience after 9/11 shaped your view on interrogation and information gathering?

Here’s the history: After September 11^th, I was the chief investigator for Al Qaeda for military commissions. So we were having to do literally thousands of interviews and interrogations around the world: Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Guantanamo. And I ran a task force of over 200 investigators, intelligence analysts, operators, and lawyers to try to make military commissions cases for the 9/11 and USS Cole suspects specifically.

We were getting a lot of bad information. We were getting unreliable information. We were getting inaccurate information, and I had a team we called the Behavioral Science Consulting Team, which was psychologists who were helping advise us on the best methods. What we found was that there had been a gap; there had been a void in research.

What kinds of methods were being used at the time, and why were they problematic?

We were operating under what they call “customary learning.” So I taught other people to do like I did. In this case, I’d say, “I interrogated in this manner and I got these results, so you, Junior Agent, you should do like me and you may get the same results.”

This was the “custom” that we did, but it was not evidence-based. It was not based on science. It was based on some best practices, successful practices—but it wasn’t grounded in science.

When did the government start to take a hard look at this and initiate reforms?

With President George W. Bush in 2006, the intelligence community recognized that senior-level people within the government were making uninformed decisions. They were making decisions based on the results of this tainted, corrupted, or inaccurate information that then funnels into the intelligence cycle and then flawed decisions are made because you’re making it on inaccurate information.

So President Bush commissioned the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—the ODNI—to come up with an answer to the question: How is it that we got all this bad information? How is it that with all of these thousands of interviews being conducted around the world by the CIA, by the FBI, by different agencies, why were we getting such bad data to make decisions?

They did a study called Educing Information. And what that study did is determine that places like the FBI, local police departments like the Boston Police Department, federal training academies like the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center were not using science to instruct in their methods of doing interviewing and interrogations. They were using approaches that were coercive approaches and confession-driven approaches that were producing bad information.

What the studies revealed was that these confession-driven methods were actually effective at obtaining confessions from a guilty person, but they were also effective at obtaining confessions from an innocent person. So you were getting these false positives.

What was your personal reaction to these findings?

It would be like issuing a weapon to police that sometimes hits the right target, but other times haphazardly misfires and then hits innocent targets. So that was a revelation for me.

At the time I was the director of the NCIS Training Academy, and we had been doing this for years. I had spent 30 years of my career doing some of these methods that might have had counterproductive results.

How did policy change during the next administration?

So when President Obama was elected in 2009, he instituted an executive order, 13491, and it said, “We won’t torture anymore, but we need to know the most effective means at obtaining accurate, reliable information to protect our national security.”

He commissioned a new group. He commissioned a task force that said we need a group to do this and a new entity within government was established, called the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group—the HIG.

For the first time in more than 50 years, the government decided that they needed to put money and conduct research so that our methods in the future are grounded in science, so that we were getting the best information to prevent the next 9/11 attack and to prevent the next Cole attack, to protect our national security.

When this multiagency was created, it had a director from the FBI who was a senior executive, one director from CIA who was a senior executive, and one director from the Department of Defense who was a senior executive, and I had just retired from the government in 2010, and I was brought on as a consultant to the HIG.

My role was to help them start up what this new training should be, to help guide them on what type of research might be available because when I ran the CITF (Criminal Investigation Task Force), we did the best with what we had, and what we knew, but it wasn’t grounded in science. They estimate that the CITF conducted—over my two and a half years leading it—over 10,000 interrogations. So we had a lot of experience. We were interrogating six days a week, around the world, Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, detention centers in Iraq, so we had a lot of experience and we wanted to bring that to bear, here’s what we’ve learned, what worked, what didn’t work from our perception. This group created a research committee to help guide the research. I was appointed to the research committee and I became the first chair of this research committee.

How much progress has been made in science-based interviewing since then?

Starting in 2010, the government started to dedicate millions and millions of dollars to commission research projects to learn how to best obtain accurate, reliable information.

Fast-forward to today, now, there have been more than 150 of these government-sponsored research projects that have resulted in more than 225 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals, so we now have consensus.

We have scientists around the world who have validated that rapport-based methods, non-coercive methods, methods that are built on building relationships, building rapport using empathy and other methods are more effective at obtaining admissions, are more effective at accurate, reliable information, and do not have the false positives of obtaining bad information, inaccurate and unreliable information, false confessions, wrongful convictions, etc. So it’s come full circle. But that body of science is just now starting to get out into the community.

How widely adopted are these new approaches today?

Science-based interviewing, or SBI, started with high-value detainee interrogators, then it trickled down to the federal agencies, and now it’s moving out to state and local police. So this is new. It’s only been in the last three or four years that FLETC, the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center—which I used to be the Assistant Director of—has evolved. They have totally revamped their training programs; they’re now using science-based methods exclusively. NCIS, my former agency, mandated it; they use only science-based methods.

NCIS was the first federal agency to mandate recording interrogations. Not because of fear that we were doing things wrong, but because of the desire to show juries that we were doing things right.

We wanted an accurate recording because we didn’t want a juror who watched television shows to think that we were using those types of techniques that are popular with script-writers and in movies and on TV. We wanted to show them what we were actually doing in there, which was rapport-based approaches.

How common are false confessions among exonerated individuals?

Here was a shocking revelation to me: I used to train; I was trained; and I believed an innocent person wouldn’t confess to a crime they didn’t commit. I thought that; I believed it; I taught it. I was wrong. We were wrong. With the advancements in the physical sciences of DNA, things changed.

I think the first DNA case was 1989 with the first exoneration, or somewhere thereabouts, where someone was exonerated because the physical sciences showed that the DNA was not there—usually these are rape cases sexual assault cases—that the person imprisoned was not the person who committed that crime, and they were exonerated.

What was shocking to me—and the numbers vary depending on when you look at it—is that approximately one third of the people who were exonerated by physical sciences had falsely confessed to crimes they didn’t commit. That was shocking to me. I couldn’t believe that occurred.

Why would someone confess to a crime they didn’t commit?

I did not believe people would falsely confess. We now know that they do, and we know why they do. We know about psychological coercion, we know about things called minimization and maximization are contributors to false confessions. We know what is validated science because it’s accepted by peers or scientific publications.

And so, one of the dangerous techniques is the false evidence ploy, which is where I’d say, “I have a videotape showing that you did this.” And then I wear you down and I keep going at that, and generally—I’ve talked to a lot of people who have falsely confessed to crimes they didn’t commit—it wears them down, and they just want to get out of the situation; they’re under a lot of pressure. They know that they didn’t do it, but they think if they say they did they’ll eventually be exonerated, but they never are. So they say they did it, although they didn’t.

Some of them are then unsure. They think, “Well, what about my memory? Maybe I just don’t remember.” So they challenge their memory.

I know a guy, Marty Tankleff, who confessed to killing his parents, when he didn’t. But the police told him that he did, the police said that his father said he did it on his dying breath, on his death bed. So he started thinking, “Maybe my memory—maybe I just don’t remember.”

What’s the latest science telling us?

So there’s a new paper that just came out this year (in 2025) that is the most up-to-date, scientifically-validated information on police-induced confessions on effective interviewing. It updates a white paper from 2012, which was the seminal paper on the topic up to that point. This updates that. But it also talks about the need for recordings.

That’s one of the things I emphasize when I testify before state legislatures for the Innocence Project to try to get legislative changes. First and foremost record your interrogations. It’s imperative to record from start to finish any of those interrogations because memory is fallible. Recording is essential.

You can’t expect a police officer, a detective, an investigator, to sit there, particularly under high-pressure situations like a homicide, a terrorism act, when pressure is high and you’re talking to a suspect and your mind is going mile a minute and you’re trying to look at what evidence you have, what evidence you need, and then try to remember that and accurately document that, it’s just not possible. Memory doesn’t work that way. That’s one of the reasons recording is essential.

The second is to evolve to science-based methods, because things like the false evidence ploy—we have your fingerprints, you failed the polygraph—when police lie, people are more prone to just go along with it because the police just will not give up on the lie, and they think that they will later be exonerated, and that’s not the case.

What makes law enforcement resistant to change?

What police are afraid of is that you’re taking away their tactics. They think, “I’ve used this, I’ve lied to suspects before, and I’ve got confessions, and I’m a good guy; and I would never do that unless I really thought you were guilty.” So you’re kind of challenging their identity, because they don’t know any better.

When I started, my first job, when I pinned on a badge and strapped on a gun was 1976. I carried a revolver and I carried a blackjack, and I believed that an innocent person wouldn’t confess to crimes they didn’t commit. And we drank alcohol and drove vehicles. We smoked cigarettes in offices. Pregnant ladies drank. We didn’t know any better. Now scientifically we know that these things cause harm. Police departments around the country are just now learning that some of the methodologies that they were using were harmful, are harmful.

Are science-based methods actually better?

The good news is the new methods are not just unharmful, they are better; they are more effective; they get more details; they get more data; they get more admissions. So state by state, things are evolving. California is very advanced. They were among the first to mandate recordings. They have banned deception in juvenile interrogations. And now hundreds of departments are being trained in science-based methods.

I was just out there a few months ago in Lake Tahoe. District Attorney Vern Pierson, from El Dorado County, held his third annual science-based interviewing conference, because as a prosecutor he’s tired of getting bad information. He’s had false confessions; he’s had wrongful convictions. He wants his police to do a better job; he needs better information.

So he is training police; he’s bringing in researchers from the HIG, who have taught at the HIG, to teach their local police departments how to do this. He brought me in to speak at this year’s science-based interviewing symposium, and it’s very encouraging to see the turnout.

Who else is embracing science-based interviewing?

Now commercially, companies are now embracing science-based methods. One of the largest that does a lot of retail work, Wicklander-Zulawski, who used to teach what was called the Reid Method—this confession-driven methodology, that is known to produce false confessions—they were the only other licensed company to teach Reid. They no longer will do it; they don’t do it; they speak out against it. They now understand that the methods they were utilizing, they were teaching, were counterproductive. So now they only use science-based methods.

Companies like the Scott Savage Training Group, they now teach only science-based methods. Instructors are popping up around the country. Former FBI agents are popping up, now only teaching science-based methods. So there’s this new wave that’s just gaining momentum now.

Are the courts keeping up with the science?

I spoke last year at two conferences of judges, about 600 judges at one and 700 at the other. I’m telling the judges, “Here’s what the science is, and you’re making bad judicial decisions because your prosecutors don’t know what a good interrogation is.”

They told me, they feel that the judges are probably about 10-15 years behind the science. And that’s just about right; this stuff is 10-15 years out there. And now judges are starting to realize this, and prosecutors are starting to realize this. So this is just now taking hold.

So are departments leading the way?

Yes, there are these pockets of excellence in policing.

Wichita, Kansas Police Department revamped their whole training program; they’re going out and training others. LAPD has revamped their training program; they’re out there training others. But there’s no unified effort because we don’t have centralized police in the United States. Every state makes their own rules; departments can make their own rules. A sheriff’s department can do something different than a prosecutor’s office. So this isn’t forced compliance, it’s actually a process where people are learning how to do it better. And once they embrace it, they take off with it.

How long does science-based interrogation training take?

It can be three days. There’s basically a lot of science out there, and so what most have evolved to is, for a cooperative or witness interview, a thing called the “cognitive interview.” The cognitive interview was developed by Geiselman and Fisher. It was based on interviewing with children.

At one time, there were all these cases in these childcare centers, where there were these cults and kids were saying these things. And they thought it was this whole thing around the country. And it wasn’t. The kids were giving bad information because of the way they were interviewed. So this cognitive interview was developed.

The psychological underpinning of the cognitive interview is clearer memory data. So it peels back or opens up memories for better recall.. When I teach interrogators—I have my own course called the Tradecraft of Effective Interviewing—I can teach you how to do a cognitive interview in a day.

What are some other types of science-based techniques?

There’s a methodology called the Scharff Technique, after Hanns Scharff, a former German Luftwaffe interrogator who got incredible information from our pilots during WWII for Germany. So after the war, we studied him and he came to the US and we learned what he was doing.

He looked for background information, he looked for commonalities, he didn’t put the people under pressure, he depressurized the atmospherics in there. And so I teach the Sharf Technique. The Scharff technique is designed to elicit information.

Then there’s a thing called the SUE Technique, the Strategic Use of Evidence. This is a technique that was developed by Dr. Maria Hartwig and Pär Anders Granhag; and this is where you strategically use evidence so that you will determine the innocent person’s innocence and you would lead the guilty person down a road because the psychological underpinnings are to look at your counterinterrogation strategies.

So I never tell you what my evidence is until there is a strategic advantage to do so.  I tell you what I think and allow you to come back and tell me whether you’re truthful or not—because what I’m looking for are statement evidence and consistencies. Is what you’re telling me inconsistent with the evidence I know?

I can lead you down a road where you’re telling more and more lies—and the best method of detecting deception is a known or checkable fact. So one of the things you’re doing with the strategic use of evidence is the shift of strategy approach, where you try to get the person you’re interrogating to switch their strategy from withholding to disclosing.

If you know more than I know, and you keep catching me in lies, what you’re hoping for is that I’m going to switch strategy and start telling you the truth, start giving you more information.

These are just a few of the science-based methods. There’s also a thing called ORBIT, Observation Rapport Based Techniques, and it’s based on four characteristics that are prevalent in elite interviewers or interrogators. ORBIT is about managing behavior, both the person interviewed, and your own. They’ve looked at real-world interrogations, thousands of them, and found what were the traits of the most effective interrogators.

The most effective interrogators were those who were honest, who were empathetic, who gave the person interviewed autonomy, and who were reflective. So that’s what we teach: We teach these are the traits of an effective interviewer, and so if you utilize these science-based methods—they’re not going to work in all cases—but overall, your likelihood of success will be greater if you utilize these than if you don’t, because they’re been scientifically validated as the most effective means, by the study of science, by the study of human beings.

What are the next steps for agencies to make the switch to SBI?

A lot of agencies already are already doing so—they are contracting with firms or individuals that have embraced the science-based methods. What they first need to do at the leadership level is understand that the methods that they’re using—deceptive police practices, lying to suspects, lying to witnesses about what the evidence is—is degrading trust.

In countries in Europe, and around the world, you can’t lie during an interrogation. We’re one of the few democratic countries that allow police to lie during an interrogation. So the first thing to recognize is that we need to be, what I call, policing with virtue. We need to go back as police and ensure that we’re upholding the highest professional standards because that’s what the public should expect of us; and embracing the science helps us do that.

It also, once you learn how to do this, it gives police confidence in their capabilities because they understand what they’re doing; they understand why this works, and they start to see in practice how effective it is, so it gives them greater confidence; and it makes them feel better about themselves.

If I went to a police department and said, “You’re an officer on the street, and you’re involved in an officer-involved shooting. I’m the internal affairs investigator, should I be able to lie to you about the evidence that I have against you?” The police department would say, “Well no, you shouldn’t be able to lie to me, I’m a cop!” Well, why should you be able to lie to your citizens?

We need to restore that type of trust that the community has in police because it will make for better relationships, it will make policing easier. It will help with recruitment methods; it will help the manner in which we police if we embrace the sciences.

So does this need to start with a shift in mindset?

The cases I see aren’t necessarily where police are trying to get a false confession. They’re trying to solve a crime; they’re under a lot of pressure. They just don’t realize that the methods they’re utilizing may be counterproductive. They’re not going in saying, “I need to get a false confession.” They just don’t know any better. So that’s really the key.

Progressive departments are more informed and are using science in the practice. We wouldn’t stop using DNA because we know how effective the physical science is. It’s been validated, so we use that approach. Well, in the psychological sciences, these methods have also been validated. So it’s just a matter of a shift in mindset, from I need the confession—because there’s cognitive biases that take effect and a lot of other phenomena that lead police down that road—to an information-gathering approach.

You have to look at yourself as a collector of information; and your goal is known or checkable facts. Your best method of detecting deception is you know the fact, or you can check the information and determine that it’s a fact.

But can juries still convict without a confession?

What you want to be able to do, and what some of the recent studies are showing is that a jury is just as likely or more likely to convict somebody once they find out that they’re lying about what they did as if they confessed.

It just needs to be a shift in mindset to police to say, “I’m not there to get the person to confess; I’m there to get the most accurate, reliable information.” And that reliable information may lead to admissions, may lead to a confession, but it may lead to additional information, additional data, it may lead you to do a re-interrogation, a re-interview, so that’s what we’re trying to do.

It’s going to take a shift in mindset from the leadership; and the challenge for police departments is that they don’t realize a problem until it’s too late.

How does this compare to other reforms agencies have navigated in the past?

Well, we recognize there was a problem with use of force—police using force during arrests. Now we have dashboard cameras and body cameras that help capture that data. And there’s immediate feedback. The person is arrested, those tapes are reviewed, if there’s a claim, and usually in a short order, in a short amount of time, you can get to ground truth because you have a video recording, everyone has a cellphone on the street. Things are being recorded when you’re walking down the street. There’s video evidence of a lot of things that go on in the public

In the interrogation room, even if there’s a recording, if there’s a false confession, it’s generally not until years later, once they’re on the road to being exonerated, that the information is reviewed.

What are the financial impacts of getting it wrong?

Right now, since 1989, the amount of funds that city and state governments have put out for wrongful convictions is over $4 billion. So taxpayers have paid over $4 billion to people who have been wrongfully convicted. That’s just a fraction of those who have been wrongfully convicted; that’s just a fraction of those who have falsely confessed, this doesn’t count for people who went to plea agreements to get lowered sentences and things like that.

It’s usually not until years later, after the Innocence Project takes on a case, that you’re learning those things. Those police departments that are affected, are never really impacted because the people who did it have retired, they’ve moved on. Those cases are 10-15 years old. The departments’ budgets are not impacted—the city or state budgets are impacted—but those departments are not affected. So most police departments don’t realize the magnitude of the problem that they’re having because they don’t see it and feel it immediately.

Who else is leading the way for change right now?

The International Association of Police is the largest fraternal organization in the world of police with 30,000 members. I’m the past chair of one of the sections, and of course they are promoting the science. They’re advocating for recordings, things like that. But they can’t mandate it; they have no teeth. It’s advisory.

That’s why you see these different departments taking steps—LAPD did it on their own. They basically learned it and said, “Wow, we can do better. Let’s do better.” It’s more about people, once they see it and do it, they never want to go back. They become believers; they become like me, these mouthpieces that say, “We need to do better. We can do better.” It’s really not that hard.

About the Guest

With more than 30 years of government service, Mark Fallon has held senior leadership roles including NCIS Deputy Assistant Director for Counterterrorism and Assistant Director for Training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC). He chaired both the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) Research Committee and the IACP’s IMPACT Section, and currently serves on the Advisory Council for the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. Fallon is also the founder of ClubFed, LLC, a strategic consultancy that offers expert witness services and specialized training in effective, ethical interviewing practices.

As Co-Founder of Project Aletheia at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Fallon works to bridge the gap between interrogation science and field practices. He was a member of the 15-person international steering committee that developed the Méndez Principles on Effective Interviewing, which have been endorsed by organizations such as the IACP and ABA. Fallon has designed training curricula—including the SMART framework—based on the Méndez Principles, and provides technical assistance through the Department of Justice. As an expert witness for the Innocence Project, he also advocates for banning police deception and implementing evidence-based reforms to safeguard human rights during interrogations – to improve the practice of policing.