Investigations

A common question that comes up in training seminars is: "How the heck do we get that written statement?"

In situations where a subject reverts to “I don’t remember,” it is generally a means of defending himself without having to admit to participation in a particular act.

With each topic that you introduce, there might be a little bit of resistance. What do we need to do to decrease resistance? Build more credibility, show understanding, and eventually lead to another assumptive question.

The participatory approach is specifically used when there’s circumstantial evidence or that there’s a possibility that your subject might have an excuse, an explanation, so some type of alibi that may or may not be true.

It's not uncommon for investigators to see the end goal of an investigation as the interview with the accused subject or involved subject.

The Wicklander-Zulawski (WZ) method is a non-confrontational interview that allows the interviewer to build credibility through a brief introductory statement—and then show understanding through rationalizing.

To the extent possible, it’s good to keep high-value assets and critical material separate from employees, but that’s not always practical.

Even though there's going to be a third person in the room, we need to create a one-on-one conversation with the subject.

At first, this may seem like an issue that involves only the retailer. However, the decision to ignore generally accepted cash and merchandise controls has far-reaching implications.

What's really important when it comes to fact-gathering interviews is an understanding of question formulation. It's necessary to understand when to ask an open-ended, expansion, closed-ended, enticement, assumptive, or even echo question.