Response to Mariana Mireles
According to Kassin, Sara, Jennifer and Perillo, the terms ‘interrogation’ and ‘interviewing’ are usually used recklessly as though they were interchangeable and synonymous (39). As Mariana points out, interviews and interrogations differ in terms of their goals. While an interview is a formal conversation that aims at eliciting information from another person whereas interrogation involves a systematic questioning of a person suspected of having committed a crime. Interrogation aims at obtaining confessions of the person being interrogated. However, further to this, an interview involves an objective and neutral attitude on the part of the interviewer who cannot accuse the interviewee. On the other hand, interrogations are always accusatory in nature. Further, what Mariana has failed to mention is the fact that interrogations are usually tightly structured while interviews are normally free flowing interactions and flexible in nature (Inbau, Buckley &Jayne 56). Additionally, interrogations are normally preceded by pre-interrogation interview and there usually arise problems of false confessions in interrogations in cases of juvenile suspects and mentally ill suspects. Mariana’s comment thus captures almost all the important aspects of the differences between interviews and interrogations.
Response to Amanda McCain
Amanda’s comment on the differences between interrogation and interviewee recognizes the fact that the two go hand in hand and hence may be used interchangeable. However, it is wrong to claim that an interview is a discussion or conversation between a law enforcement officer and a witness or victim. This is because interviews do not involve conversations between these categories of people within the criminal justice system. It could be between the law enforcement officials themselves or with suspects. She has however brought out the clear distinction between the two by pointing out that an interrogation is usually confrontational, sneaky and accusatory unlike interviews. Moreover, it is important to note, as Amanda has, that whereas a suspect in an interrogation room is entitled to Miranda rights before and during interrogation before a confession can be obtain from them, an interviewee need not have their Miranda rights read to them (Kassim et al. 49). Also, while the primacy goal of interviews is to gather relevant information to an investigation, interrogations aim at learning the truth about crime details from an individual suspected of having committed a crime (Inbau, Buckley &Jayne 58).
Works Cited
Inbau, FE, JP Buckley and BP Jayne. Criminal interrogations and confession. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen, 2001.
Kassin, Saul M, Sara C Appleby and Jennifer Torkildson Perillo. "Interviewing suspects: Practice, science and future directions." Legal and Criminological Psychology 15 (2010): 39-55.
