ORBIT Outside the Room

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with individual and social factors that may influence suspects’ decision-making during police interviews, as well as with the procedural and contextual landscape in which the interviews take place. The focus is on presenting descriptive data on a sample of 20 terrorist organization and organized criminal gang suspects and data regarding individual and contextual factors relating to each suspect in the sample. These factors include fear, status and relationship, criminal background, legal advice, strength of evidence, timing of arrest, type or circumstances of arrest or detention, and duration between offense and arrest. Using these outside-the-room factors as a framework, this chapter provides descriptive data on these factors as it pertained to the 20 suspects in the sample as well as data on the outcome of the process. The interviews with the suspects are also examined to identify and present instances of these factors arising in interactions between police interviewers and the suspects.