No. Good point.Originally Posted by BaiHu
No. Good point.
Pretending and getting caught at it makes you look like a disingenuous asshole. Pretending and doing it convincingly makes you a good interviewer/interrogator. If you don't have a hand full of personalities and approaches based on your read of the interviewee you are leaving information and confessions on the table. It absolutely is something that you can train for and put into practice. If you have a Crimes Against Children unit, watch them in action. They are usually top shelf at this sort of thing.
As a civilian, I couldn't agree with this more. I'm not naturally friendly to strangers and I really don't care. I am polite for exactly as long as I feel it is appropriate. If I am asking a stranger for something (directions would be typical), I approach respectfully and I remain polite. If they are not receptive, I disengage. If somebody asks me for something, I am polite if it's appropriate (directions, again) and firm without being an asshole, escalating to assertive when polite is not appropriate (pan handlers, for example). I'm not interested in starting fights with people, but I really don't care if a stranger who approached me without being invited to leaves thinking I'm a dick. That doesn't mean I haven't had plenty of friendly conversations with people I didn't know, and even struck up some acquaintances but overall, that's not my goal and I don't care who does or doesn't like it.
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with being friendly.
I did work crimes against children, specifically child prostitution. I don't think for a minute that trying to put on a pretend personality and dealing with a soul sucking pimp who finds boys and girls off the street, takes them in as a parent figure, and then turns them into prostitutes is going to be fooled and not see through the charade. That's a master manipulator and reader of people. I think a detective can fine tune his methods to work with his personality, but the pretend personality thing is just putting lipstick on a pig.
When can pretend a lot of things, just because we get away with it most of the time, doesn't make it a good idea.
It's a learned skill. But just like all the other skills a police officer learns you have to want to learn it and work hard at it. I had great success being friendly but understanding that I'm not friends with my "clients". Criminals understand it too and with criminals it helps to set the tone right from the first contact. Be respectful but make sure you will not tolerate any of their bullshit. Once they understand they cannot slip by you it's surprising the information they will give you. My mindset was "here is a criminal; evidenced by the crime they just committed and by their arrest record. They have made crime a life style. They have info about many crimes And I want that info. Telling them that you want the guy who fucked them over and asking them who will be banging their woman while they are locked up will often get you good leads. I will admit that I had more success being friendly than being joe Friday. Of course you have start out as a hard ass but then a can of soda during an interview can surprise you with results and confessions. My advice to new officers is if your not getting confessions your not talking to your suspects enough or qt a level the suspect can understand. Learn family trees of your local criminals ties in too
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