What is Science-Based Interviewing?

Science-Based Interviewing (SBI) is an evidence-based approach to investigative interviewing that prioritizes accurate information gathering over confession-seeking. It relies on peer-reviewed research in psychology, memory, communication, and decision-making to improve the quality and reliability of statements while reducing bias and investigative risk.

Does Science-Based Interviewing reduce false confessions?

Yes. Research consistently shows that information-gathering approaches reduce the risk of false confessions while maintaining—or increasing—true confessions. By avoiding pressure tactics and prioritizing transparency and evidence-based questioning, SBI improves both accuracy and reliability.

Will Science-Based Interviewing reduce confession rates?

No. It will increase them. Multiple studies, including large-scale reviews, show no drop in confessions (even increases) when investigators use science-based, rapport-driven methods. Instead, investigators obtain more reliable admissions and a higher quality and quantity of information that can be independently corroborated.

Is Science-Based Interviewing used outside of law enforcement?

Absolutely. Science-Based Interviewing is widely applicable in corporate investigations, human resources, compliance, loss prevention, and internal affairs. Any investigation that relies on statements as evidence benefits from structured, ethical, and research-supported interviewing practices.

What research supports Science-Based Interviewing?

Science-Based Interviewing is supported by decades of peer-reviewed research (some available through open sources), including work on cognitive interviewing, rapport-based communication, active listening, and the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE). Major reviews and field studies demonstrate improved information yield, reduced false confessions, and more defensible investigative outcomes.

What is the Strategic Use of Evidence (SUE)?

The Strategic Use of Evidence is an evidence-based interviewing technique that involves the deliberate timing, questioning, and method of evidence disclosure to identify contradictions between statements and known facts. SUE allows investigators to assess veracity based on evidence rather than intuition or behavioral cues.

Is Science-Based Interviewing legally defensible?

Yes. SBI aligns with constitutional requirements, due process, and best practices for admissible statements. By emphasizing transparency, documentation, and ethical conduct, it strengthens investigative defensibility in court, administrative proceedings, and internal reviews.

Who should be trained in Science-Based Interviewing?

Science-Based Interviewing is appropriate for law enforcement investigators, supervisors, corporate investigators, HR professionals, compliance teams, and anyone responsible for gathering critical information through interviews.

Why is Science-Based Interviewing considered a professional standard?

Because statements are evidence. Science-Based Interviewing treats statements with the same care as physical evidence by using validated methods that reduce contamination, bias, and error—resulting in more accurate conclusions and better investigative decisions.

Is Science-Based Interviewing compatible with constitutional and workplace investigation requirements?

Yes. Science-Based Interviewing aligns with constitutional protections, due process, and workplace investigation standards by emphasizing voluntariness, transparency, and accurate documentation. These principles strengthen the defensibility of statements in criminal, administrative, and employment contexts.

Does Science-Based Interviewing replace existing interview or interrogation training?

Science-Based Interviewing does not rely on legacy confession-driven models. It represents an evidence-based paradigm focused on information gathering rather than behavioral manipulation, confirmatory questioning, or harsher tactics. Organizations often transition fully to SBI to update outdated methods that increase risk and statement contamination.

Can Science-Based Interviewing be used in high-stakes or high-profile investigations?

Yes. Research and field validation studies (actual police cases) show that information-gathering approaches are particularly effective in complex and high-stakes investigations, where accuracy, corroboration, and defensibility are critical.

How does Science-Based Interviewing support investigative decision-making?

Science-Based Interviewing improves investigative decision-making by slowing premature conclusions, reducing cognitive bias, and prioritizing verifiable information. This approach helps investigators test case hypotheses through red teaming and build cases that withstand legal and organizational scrutiny.

Strategic Use of Evidence Technique

The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique, often called the SUE technique or SUE, is a research-based interviewing method that helps investigators use evidence more carefully during investigative interviews. Rather than immediately confronting a person with what the investigator knows, SUE teaches investigators to plan questions, withhold evidence temporarily, listen carefully, and compare the interviewee’s account against known facts.

This makes the SUE technique different from confession-driven interrogation methods. The goal is not to pressure someone into an admission. The goal is to gather reliable information, test the strength of a statement, identify statement-evidence inconsistencies, and make better investigative decisions.

SUE is a core part of Science-Based Interviewing (SBI) because it treats statements as evidence. Like physical evidence, statement evidence can be strengthened, contaminated, misunderstood, or misused. The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique gives investigators a structured way to protect the value of that information.

The research foundation for SUE comes from decades of work on strategic questioning, counter-interrogation strategies, and evidence disclosure. SUE was a framework developed in Sweden in the early 2000s by researchers including Maria Hartwig, Pär Anders Granhag, and colleagues.

What Is the Strategic Use of Evidence Technique?

The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique is an investigative interviewing approach that helps investigators decide when, how, and whether to disclose evidence during an interview.

In SUE questioning, the investigator does not immediately reveal what they know, that would be counterproductive. Instead, the investigator starts funnel questioning with broad, open-ended prompts, allows the interviewee to provide a free narrative, and then gradually moves toward more specific questions related to the evidence. The key is that the questions address areas where evidence exists without prematurely revealing the evidence itself.

A simple way to understand SUE is this:

Ask before you disclose.

When investigators reveal evidence too early, they may unintentionally help a deceptive person adjust their story. When investigators ask carefully designed questions first, they preserve the opportunity to compare the person’s account to the evidence and keep themselves open to the opportunity to get uncontaminated, corroborated statements, the gold standard in interviewing.

Why Does the Strategic Use of Evidence Technique Matter?

The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique matters because interviews are often where investigations are solved, weakened, or misdirected.

Physical evidence, video, phone records, GPS data, witness statements, and digital records may all help an investigation. But those pieces of evidence usually need context. That context often comes from people.

SUE helps investigators avoid three common problems:

Revealing evidence too early
This can allow a deceptive person to explain around the evidence.
Using evidence as a confrontation tool
This can increase defensiveness and reduce information gathering.
Failing to test the statement
A person may sound believable, but their statement still needs to be compared against known facts.

SUE gives investigators a better path. It supports ethical interviewing, information gathering, and evidence-based decision-making.

How Does the Strategic Use of Evidence Technique Work?

The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique uses a funnel questioning approach.

The interview begins broadly and gradually narrows. This approach allows the interviewee to provide information before the investigator reveals (or not) what is already known. The investigator will also be able to corroborate any statement to what is known through evidence.

A SUE questioning sequence may look like this:

1. Start with free recall

The investigator begins with an open prompt such as:

“Tell me as much as you remember about what you did during that time.”

This allows the person to provide a free narrative. Free recall is important because it gives the investigator an opportunity to hear what the person includes, what they leave out, and how they describe events without being steered.

2. Ask broad open-ended follow-up questions

The investigator then narrows the topic without revealing the evidence.

Example:

“Tell me more about what you did while you were at that location.”

This stage helps the investigator gather more detail while preserving the value of undisclosed evidence.

3. Move toward more specific evidence-related questions

The investigator may then ask questions that relate to the evidence but do not disclose the evidence.

Example:

“Were you near that area?”
“What did you do while you were there?”
“Did you leave anything there?”

SUE emphasizes that investigators should not disclose the evidence during this questioning stage and should allow the interviewee time to respond.

4. Compare the statement to the evidence

After the person has committed to an account, the investigator can compare the statement against known facts.

This may reveal:

Consistency between the statement and the evidence
Omissions of important details
Explanations that appear designed to account for evidence
Contradictions between the statement and known facts
Voluntary disclosures of incriminating or important information

What Are Statement-Evidence Inconsistencies?

A statement-evidence inconsistency occurs when a person’s statement conflicts with reliable evidence.

For example, a person may say they were never near a location, but video, GPS data, or a witness places them there. In SUE, this inconsistency matters because it may reveal an information management strategy, a counter-interrogation strategy, concealment, outright deception, or a need for further investigation or questioning.

A statement-evidence inconsistency is not automatically proof of guilt. People can be mistaken. Evidence can be misread. Memories can be incomplete. But when a contradiction appears, it becomes an investigative issue that must be explored carefully.

SUE helps investigators avoid guessing or using pseudoscience to guess at lies. It provides them a structure for testing statements against evidence. This is something investigators can testify to in court or at a deposition.

SUE Is Not Just Late Evidence Disclosure

A common misunderstanding is that the Strategic Use of Evidence Technique is only about waiting to disclose evidence late.

That is too simplistic and wrong

Viewing, or worse, training SUE as merely late evidence disclosure is incorrect because it overlooks the critical role of strategic questions. The funnel questioning that concern the evidence, without disclosing the evidence, is an integral part of the technique and interviewing overall.

SUE includes three practical components:

Pre-interview evidence assessment
The investigator identifies what is known, what is uncertain, and what needs to be tested.
Strategic questioning
The investigator asks questions that relate to evidence without revealing it too early.
Evidence disclosure planning
The investigator decides when and how to disclose evidence based on the interview strategy and investigative goals.

This is why SUE fits naturally within Science-Based Interviewing. It is not a trick. It is a planning and questioning method designed to improve information quality.

What Is the Evidence Framing Matrix?

The Evidence Framing Matrix is a research-based concept connected to the Strategic Use of Evidence Technique. It helps investigators think more carefully about how evidence is introduced during an interview. In SUE, evidence is not simply something to “drop” on a suspect or witness. Evidence must be assessed, protected, questioned, and disclosed in a way that preserves its investigative value.

This matters because the way evidence is framed can affect the quality of the statement that follows. If an investigator reveals too much too early, the interviewee may adjust their account to fit the known evidence. If the investigator asks strategic questions first, the person has an opportunity to provide their account before learning what the investigator already knows.

The Evidence Framing Matrix keeps the focus on statement evidence, statement-evidence inconsistencies, and careful comparison between what a person says and what the evidence shows.

Evidence Framing Matrix (EFM)

Why the Evidence Framing Matrix Matters in SUE

The Evidence Framing Matrix helps investigators avoid treating evidence disclosure as a single yes-or-no decision. The better question is not simply, “Should I reveal the evidence?” The better questions are:

Should this evidence be disclosed now?

How specific should the disclosure be?

What does the person already know or suspect?

What question should be asked before the evidence is disclosed?

What statement-evidence inconsistency am I testing?

What investigative objective does this disclosure serve?

This is important because SUE includes more than late evidence disclosure. SUE includes practical components such as pre-interview evidence assessment, the SUE questioning, and the timing, manner, and style of evidence disclosure.

Evidence Framing Is Not a Gotcha Tactic

Evidence framing is about protecting the integrity of the interview and the power of the evidence. It helps investigators avoid contaminating the person’s account while still creating a fair opportunity to explain, clarify, test, corroborate, or correct information.

A SUE-based interviewer starts with free recall, moves into broader open-ended questions, and then gradually narrows toward more specific evidence-related questions without disclosing the evidence too early. The SUE questioning handout specifically instructs interviewers to begin with free recall, ask broad open questions that address but do not disclose the evidence, and then gradually narrow toward more specific evidence-related questions.

How the Evidence Framing Matrix Helps Assess Credibility

The Evidence Framing Matrix gives investigators a better way to assess credibility than relying on junk science methods such as neurolinguistic programming, micro-expressions, baselining, or behavior-provoking questions. Instead of guessing whether a person looks truthful, the investigator evaluates whether the person’s statement is consistent with reliable evidence.

That makes the credibility assessment more understandable, defensible, and useful in court, workplace investigations, compliance investigations, and internal inquiries.

In simple terms:

Junk science asks, “How did they look/shift/gesture when they said it?”

SUE asks, “How does what they said compare to what the evidence says?”

How SUE Helps Investigators Avoid Bias

Investigators are human. They can anchor on early information, overvalue a theory, or interpret statements through a guilt-presumptive lens.

The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique helps reduce these risks because it requires the investigator to slow down and separate

What the evidence actually shows
What the investigator believes it means
What the interviewee says
What still needs to be tested

This is where SUE pairs well with red teaming and bias mitigation. Before the interview, investigators can challenge their assumptions:

Is the evidence accurate?
Is the interpretation logical?
Are we assuming guilt too early?
What else could explain this evidence?
What would change our theory?

SUE does not replace critical thinking. It gives critical thinking a structure.

SUE and Science-Based Interviewing

Strategic Use of Evidence

The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique is one of the most important tools within Science-Based Interviewing.

Science-Based Interviewing is built around reliable research-supported information gathering. It emphasizes rapport, active listening, open-ended questions, cognitive interviewing, rejecting risk-laden interrogation techniques found in false confession cases, and careful testing of statements.

SUE supports those goals by helping investigators:

Ask better questions
Avoid premature confrontation
Preserve the diagnostic value of evidence
Identify statement-evidence inconsistencies
Gather more and more complete information
Reduce the risk of false information or contaminated information
Make better investigative decisions

SUE and the Shift-of-Strategy Approach

The Shift-of-Strategy approach, or SoS, builds on the Strategic Use of Evidence Technique.

The basic idea is that some interviewees may begin by withholding information. Through strategic questioning and later evidence disclosure, they may realize that withholding is not working. When confronted with contradictions after they have committed to a statement, they may shift from withholding to becoming more forthcoming.

The source material describes the purpose of SoS as shifting a subject’s counter-interrogation strategy from withholding to forthcoming by using core elements of SUE.

This is especially important in interviews involving reluctant witnesses, associates, friends, criminal networks, or people with loyalty concerns.

Who Should Learn the Strategic Use of Evidence Technique?

The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique is useful for professionals who conduct investigative interviews, including:

Detectives
Criminal investigators
Patrol officers conducting follow-up interviews
Internal affairs investigators
Corporate investigators
HR investigators
Compliance professionals
Loss prevention investigators
School and campus investigators
Threat assessment teams
Workplace violence prevention teams

Any professional who must compare a person’s statement against evidence can benefit from learning SUE. This includes investigators, compliance professionals, HR leaders, threat assessment teams, and private-sector fact-finders who want better ways to judge if someone is telling the truth without using unreliable methods like neurolinguistic programming (NLP), micro-expressions, baselining, behavior-provoking questions, or other techniques that can't be clearly explained, tested, or defended in court or at deposition. SUE gives professionals a more professional alternative: assess what a person says against what the evidence shows, rather than trying to guess truth or deception from anxiety, body language, or scripted behavioral reactions.

Strategic Use of Evidence Technique Training

Training in the Strategic Use of Evidence Technique should go beyond a simple lecture on evidence disclosure. Investigators need to practice the method, apply it to realistic case facts, and learn how to plan evidence-based questions before entering the interview room.

IXI offers practitioner/researcher-led training options for agencies and organizations that want to upgrade their investigative practices to evidence-based techniques. Training options include online offerings, in-person Science-Based Interviewing classes, Strategic Use of Evidence instruction, and Science-Based Interviewing Train-the-Trainer courses for agencies ready to build internal capacity and move away from outdated, confession-driven, or pseudoscientific methods.

IXI also uses real-time AI practice scenarios to help interviewers apply new techniques, receive realistic interview practice, and build confidence before using these skills in high-stakes investigative settings.

Effective SUE training should include:

How to assess evidence before the interview
How to separate facts from assumptions
How to build a questioning plan
How to start with free recall
How to use funnel questioning
How to ask evidence-related questions without disclosing the evidence
How to identify statement-evidence inconsistencies
How to disclose evidence ethically and strategically
How to document the interview process
How to avoid bias and guilt-presumptive interviewing

SUE is not about playing “gotcha” or seeking a confession. It is about asking better questions, preserving evidence value, testing statement evidence, and gathering reliable information.

+

See if We're a Fit

Frequently asked questions

Science-Based Interviewing FAQ

Strategic Use of Evidence - SUE

Workplace Violence Training

Red Teaming for Investigations

Traditional interrogation models often focus on extracting confessions through pressure, behavioral cues, or step-based tactics. Science-Based Interviewing focuses on rapport, strategic questioning, and evidence disclosure to test statements, uncover contradictions, and gather complete case-relevant information without coercion or contamination. PS - Science-based methods have been found to have higher truthful confession rates.

Yes. IXI instructors have utilized, taught, and helped implement Science-Based Interviewing (SBI) in real investigative environments. This includes experience using SBI in criminal investigations, training investigators in SBI methods, and serving as agency coordinators during field validation studies on SBI at the Wichita Police Department and implementation across Kansas. This practical implementation experience matters because SBI is not just a classroom or academic concept. IXI teaches evidence-based interviewing from the perspective of practitioners who have applied these methods, trained others to use them, and helped agencies move from outdated interrogation practices toward research-based investigative interviewing.

Strategic Use of Evidence Technique Summary

The Strategic Use of Evidence Technique is a research-based investigative interviewing method that helps investigators use evidence strategically during questioning. SUE begins with free recall, moves through broad and specific questions, and delays evidence disclosure so the investigator can compare the interviewee’s statement against known facts. The technique helps identify statement-evidence inconsistencies, reduce bias, preserve the value of evidence, and gather more reliable information.

SUE is a core component of Science-Based Interviewing (SBI), alongside other evidence-based techniques such as rapport building, active listening, open-ended questions, funnel questioning, TEDS questions, cognitive interviewing, planning and preparation, red teaming, and the strategic use of evidence. Together, these SBI techniques help make interviews more effective, increase cooperation, gather more information, elicit more case-relevant information, and support more truthful admissions or confessions when they occur.

Because SBI is built around information gathering rather than pressure, it is useful in law enforcement, corporate investigations, HR investigations, compliance interviews, workplace investigations, and other fact-finding settings where accuracy, fairness, and reliability matter.