A Netflix documentary, "Victim/Suspect" discusses how police handle sexual assault investigations, with two Tuscaloosa cases highlighted. The 90-minute program includes footage shot around Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama campus. Director and producer Nancy Schwartzman followed investigative journalist Rachel de Leon as she tracked sexual assault reports where the victims were arrested by police they had approached, charged with making a false report, which in most states is a misdemeanor offense.

In the story they reference “the widespread use of ruse” (misrepresenting evidence to the subject) which they say “is derived from the Reid technique, developed in the 1950s.”

To be clear, when conducting an investigative interview of a victim, witness or suspect, we teach that the investigator should remain a neutral, objective, non-judgmental fact finder. There should be no misrepresentation of any evidence during the interview process. The interview should consist of open-ended questions, allowing the subject to tell the investigator what happened, followed by non-accusatory, non-confrontational questions to clarify the details of the event.

On our YouTube channel, we have several video presentations on the use of open-ended questions during the interview.

One of our Investigator Tips on this website describes the Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview (FETI), a trauma victim interview protocol developed by Russell Strand. It combines the best of child forensic interviewing techniques (open-ended questions, non-leading questions, avoiding influencing the interview subject, etc.) along with the principles of critical incident stress debriefings (discussing the emotional and physical impact of the event and the repercussions) and neurobiology research to obtain not just the who, what, when, why, where and how of the incident, but also the three-dimensional experiential aspect of the crime. This process solicits and documents critical forensic physiological evidence. Click here for details on the FETI.