Science-Based Interviewing for Patrol Officers

Date: Monday, October 06, 2025 | 09:00 AM to 04:30 PM

This class has been designed with patrol officers in mind. It uses the most recent research in gaining rapport and verifiable information in interviews and is put in context of the types of interactions a patrol officer might encounter. The course follows the same research-based models used in the 5-day Science-Based Interviewing course with a focus on establishing a conversational rapport and encouraging the other person to share information willingly. We will look at Time Critical Questioning (TCQ) as a technique to quickly prioritize and obtain information and pair this with questioning strategies to maximize information gain. This class is open to anyone and is applicable to patrol officers, hostage crisis teams, threat assessment teams or others who need a method of prioritizing information from others in a time-sensitive situation. This class is sponsored by the Jersey City/Newark Urban Area Security Initiative and there is no cost to attend.

Lead Facilitators : Wayne Thomas is the lead instructor and is an interesting mix of facilitator and practitioner. Wayne has 29 years of operational experience, spending the first 12 years of his career as a UK police detective, specializing in the investigation of serious and organized crime and the use of covert policing methods. This was followed by 17 years as a UK government intelligence officer working in counterterrorism investigations. Recently, he has worked in collaboration with U.K. and U.S. agencies to train interviewers and investigators in these strategies. When not teaching, he conducts research into the behavioral and cognitive aspects of interviewing in support of the Hope Applied Cognition Laboratory in Portsmouth University, U.K. and the Cold Case Network (a collaboration with Carleton University, Canada, and Goldsmiths University, U.K.). He is the deputy editor of “Investigative Interviewing Research and Practice,” the journal of the International Investigative Interviewers Research Group.

Lorae Roukema (Ed.D) is a lifelong educator with more than 30 years of experience. Lorae works with many U.S. and International agencies to build curriculum that is engaging and interactive. She balances this life with teaching at Campbell University as a professor in education as well as providing in-service training for instructors on how to most effectively teach. For your course, Lorae will handle the logistics of exercises and be present to assist Wayne with facilitating groups and activities.

Contact: Greg Demeter, Jersey City/Newark Urban Area Security Initiative 917-664-8563 gdemeter@nnjuasi.org