What Is PACE Interviewing: The Complete Guide
Is it hard for you to conduct interviews while staying ethical, and getting accurate information at the same time? There is a widening gap between traditional questioning and the latest and most effective practices in investigative interviewing within police work, human resources and security fields. PACE interviewing is a model designed to improve the way you conduct interviews in a manner that is fair and accurate. This multi-part guide will walk you step-by-step through the phases of PACE interviewing, explain the benefits, and will teach you how to integrate the model into your business. You will learn why PACE is the most sought after model for conducting investigative interviews around the globe.
Understanding the PACE Model of Interviewing
PACE interviewing is a multiple-part model that offers an outline to give structure to the interview process, consisting of Planning and Preparation, Engage and Explain, Account, and Closure and Evaluate. PACE interviewing stands in contrast to old school interrogations in that it focuses on rapport building, process transparency, and utilizes open questions that gather broad and lengthy responses to accrue comprehensive accounts about subjects of the discussion.
With many years of investigative work, PACE interviewing developed an approach that focuses on accuracy rather than confessions. Research shows that an accurate structured interview approach diminishes false confessions, lowers memory contamination, produces accurate detailed records of the conversation, and produces reliable information. This approach is now required in UK policing and is increasingly accepted in Australia, Canada, and other places.
The principle is simple. More effective communication and planning creates more effective outcomes. When the interviewer and interviewee both understand the goal and the step-by-step procedure, the interaction is more beneficial.
Understanding the four phases of PACE interviewing
Planning and Preparation
Planning and Preparation make the base of the interview. before any meeting, you need to comb through all the existing evidence, find the missing pieces of information, set the goals for the interview, and formulate questions to achieve your goals. This step also involves evaluating the interviewee’s situation, and any potential concerns surrounding their level of vulnerability. Preparation helps to avoid wasted time, and helps to get more purposeful questions asked.
Explain and Engage
Explain and Engage is where we build rapport. You start off the interview with a professional welcome and state the purpose of the interview. Then you give them an outline of the interview, set some ground ruls, and ask them for their cooperation. This is more than just being polite, but is about psychology. People tend to give more accurate, detailed information when they understand the purpose and what is going to happen. This phase caters to the interviewee’s understanding and safety, and create a rapport with the interviewee. This phase is most likely to reduce anxiety and create a sense of psychological safety.
Account
This phase is the heart of the interview and is where we gather the information. At the start, you ask them some open-ended questions and then let them talk without interuption. This is so you can hear their story. At the end, you ask the clarifying questions to make sure you get the details and to eliminate inconsistencies, but make sure to let the interviewee get the information in their head without you telling them the information to make sure you don’t contaminate the information. This phase gets the best and most accurate information because you aren’t directly asking the interviewee for information so their memories aren’t being prompted or contaminated.
Closure and Evaluate
This phase makes sure there is completeness and accountability. You go over what you discussed and to make sure you got the details correct then you explain what the next steps are. Evaluation is the part where you assess the interview and the lessons learned to help in the next interviews.
The Primary Advantages of PACE Interviewing
PACE Interviewing is extremely beneficial for PACE organizations. The interview becomes more reliable for accounts. PACE interviewing is about utilizing a structure to get an interview that accounts for the facts, so you are able to have the interview in a way that can come back and be used in legal circumstances because you can show documentation of the process you used.
Another major benefit is less bias from interviewers. When you stick to a rigid format, you are less likely to steer questions in a desired direction. This shields the candidate and the organization from ethical and legal risks.
Newcomers to PACE are often surprised by the increased rapport and cooperation. Transparency and respect form the trust that prompts greater levels of cooperation. This is the case even in difficult scenarios, where a focus on understanding rather than blame leads to more productive results.
Integrity by design means that the same set of procedures is applied to every interview. This uniformity protects the organization, makes it easier to onboard new interviewers, and builds institutional knowledge that continuously improves.
Getting Started with PACE Interviewing
To get started, you need to conduct proper training and certification. Interviewers should learn about the framework, practice each step, and find ways to customize the approaches to various situations. Many entities bring in outside trainers to start, and then build internal training capacity.
Then, as a matter of course, create interview outlines beforehand. Design templates that help interviewers navigate the Planning and Preparation steps in an orderly fashion. These templates could have areas for background research, gaps in evidence, and questions to be included.
- Set up specific interview standards for your organization. PACE offers a general framework, but your customization needs to consider your sector, your organization’s culture, and your obligations to the law.
- Record and evaluate interviews to find areas that need improvement. Having recordings adds accountability and safeguards both interviewers and the interviewees. Many organizations begin with a few critical interviews but have learned to expand their recording efforts.
Use Cases – Real World
Law enforcement organizations extend accuracy and limit false confessions when employing PACE interviewing for crime investigation. Security knowledgeable professionals use it to interview and question suspected perpetrators or witness for various incidents. Human resource departments defend PACE use for interviewing serious misconduct allegations for more and more organizations to legally defend the organization.
Picture a workplace investigation for possible violations of policy. In PACE interviewing, the HR investigator prepares, then provides a clear explanation of both the purpose and process to the employee, then uses appropriate open questions to receive their account and records them. This method produces accurate records of the situation and shows the employee, and others, procedural fairness should someone review the details legally.
Picture a theft you security team need to investigate. PACE interviewing helps the team to create detailed, respectful, and cooperative accounts from both witnesses and suspects to maintain the professionalism and decorum that on many occasions, is the reason for successful cooperation.
Why do Organizations Choose PACE Interviewing Over Other Ways?
One reason is PACE Interviewing’s Ethical Integrity. PACE Interviewing is the only form of interviewing that respects how the mind works, and does not engage in memory-extraction, credibility-damaging coercive practices. Organizations understand that loyalty is a two-way street, and the organization and the public need to be trustworthy to their teams, to interviewees, and to everyone they serve.
Another reason is that PACE Interviewing has Legal Defensibility. There is value in having interviews that are defensibly legal. Is legal defensibility in having interviews that are PACE. There is a growing expectation from judges, juries, and regulators that interviews should be defensibly legal.
Another reason is Defensibly Legal PACE Interviewing Provides to Organizations in the Legal and Ethical Scope. There is legal defensibility in having interviews that are PACE. The growing expectation from judges, juries, and regulators is that interviews should be defensibly legal.
Another reason is how PACE Interviewing’s Consistency and Scale Provides Organizations Quality in Growing. When PACE is integrated into organizational processes and training, interviews, regardless of the interviewer, are PACE, and all interoperability meets minimum PACE standards.
Frequently Asked Questions About PACE Interviewing
How Long is PACE Interviewing?
How PACE interviewing goes depends on the case. Interviewing simple cases takes 30 minutes to complete. Complex cases can take hours. There are also Planning and Prep processes that take hours and days to do before the interview.
Is PACE Interviewing Required in My Jurisdiction?
With UK Policing, PACE is mandatory. With the world recognizing PACE principles as best practices, are also the minimum you should do. Check local laws, but adopting PACE is also a value to your organization as recognition of professionalism and ethics.
Can you use PACE interviewing for internal investigations?
Definitely yes. PACE provides internal structure that helps HR, compliance, and internal audit functions maintain equitable information collection and derive organizational value from balanced information.
What if the interviewee gets non-cooperative or really emotional?
The PACE interviewing process has interventions for dealing with challenging circumstances. The focus on respect and engagement often preempt disputes, however, the structure does offer guidance on when to professionally stop, take breaks, or call for appropriate supplementary assistance.
What is the best way to assess PACE interviewing usefulness in the organization?
The organization can measure information reliability, outcomes success rate, interview participants, and the overall gained efficiency from the investigation. Document quality and related litigation reductions are common reporting improvement.
Can PACE interviewing be applied to interviews not related to investigations?
Absolutely. Professionals like PACE; journalists, researchers, and other professionals appreciate the focus on communication and preparation. The frameworks purpose and principles planning, engagement, information synthesis, and closure are applicable for many.
How long will training normally take?
For training, depending on the organizational complexity and depth, the time may take from 2 to 5 days with the majority being the minimum length. Standards, and mastery degree are maintained with continual practice and refresher training.
Conclusion
Pause, Align, Collaborate, and Engage, or, as we call it, PACE, is an innovative and constructive way to conduct and restructure investigative interviews. PACE focuses on Preparing and Planning, Engaging and Explaining, Accounting, and Closing and Evaluating to improve the professional’s effectiveness, and instrumentalizes PACE for the good of all people.
More efficacy and less bias and increased collaboration and the ability to document and record your interviews are just some of the countless philosophical, ethical, mental, and social improvements PACE accomplished and embodies. Start to improve your field practices and your procedure. Start to make PACE incorporate interviews that do not destroy others but search for the good in all.
Tell us your biggest challenge regarding your current interviewing processes, and please comment below. PACE might just be the solution to the problem that prevents your organization from documenting and processing information the way you want to.
