More and more often, I am finding myself in the position of casually questioning people on the street.  After being lied to a couple of times (and not picking up on the lies), I decided to try to seek some training to interrogations.  Can anyone recommend any classes or reading?

Actually, there is a marked difference between interrogations and interviews- casual conversations usually do not involve direct accusations and are more correctly referred to as interviews (field interviews).  The ability to be a great interviewer is not necessarily connected with the ability to tell when someone is lying to you.

We can certainly help with both!

It seems to me that you might be less interested in the mechanics and process of conducting a formal interview and more interested in the “detection of deception.” Most courses in detecting lies involve “Kinesic Interviewing” but it is only a part of the entire process.

Kinesic Interviewing is an interviewing technique used to evaluate nonverbal behavior which can certainly help in the detection of deception, but realistically all kinesic interviewing does is to detect changes in a person’s physical behavior. The idea is that a person’s physical behavior is a manifestation of how a person is feeling (emotion creates motion) but is not necessarily indicative of deception… simply a change of emotion or stress levels (both eustress and distress).  The kinesic interviewer is trained to notice these changes in syntax and relative to the line of questioning and in contrast to the subject’s baseline or “normal” behavior. For example, when a fugitive investigator asks if the subject spoke to a particular fugitive and the subject’s breathing quickens, becomes shallow or stops altogether at that moment despite the subject claiming to not have, then the investigator knows that he needs to probe that area deeper but not make the assumption (yet) that the subject is lying.  Perhaps the subject did not speak to the fugitive but has additional information or strong feelings about the question.  The subject may be frightened by the investigator’s line of questioning, which would also create changes in physical behavior, too.   It will take additional questioning and evaluation before developing a better opinion about whether the subject is telling the truth (and they are all opinions until the subject confesses to lying).  Kinesic Interviewing is very powerful technique when used in conjunction with timeline analysis or statement analysis.

We discuss Kinesic Interviewing techniques in our private investigator course, Investigate This!, and also teach you how to properly apply those techniques to more accurately tell when someone is lying to you.  It is included in the huge section titled “Interpreting Nonverbal Behavior” in Chapter 2.  This is a hyper-critical aspect of being a successful private investigator and those who possess the skill to detect lies immediately stand above their peers in their ability to get conduct a complete investigation.

The ability to quickly and accurately tell when someone is lying will make or break cases in your future!