Hi folks,

Next month I'll be going to a 4-day Reid class (Basic + Advanced).  Just curious on your experiences with the class and if you have any recommendations on either materials to read prior, things to consider or pay attention to, or good take aways vs not so good.  Thanks in advance,

It has some good stuff. It can be coercive if you aren't careful.

Just remember, Reid was developed for conducting interviews in a private business setting and was then sold to LE.

They will tell you interviewing is a science and to follow their way.

Anybody who has done them for a living, and sat across the table should tell you it is part science and part art.  It fluctuates with each interview and you only master it by doing it.

Pay attention and learn.  Walk out realizing it is a tool, and most of us have toolboxes filled with more than one type of tool.  Don't expect it to work or be appropriate in every case.

Graduate of both the FBI and FLETC Interviews and Interrogations courses.

Reid is outdated and long in the tooth.

There's a new methodology that's apparently gaining some traction, but there's not much publicly shared about it except the FBI is the poc for the training.

You don't need to know anything prior.  Then you'll only remember a few steps after it.

The Reid method had been on the outs at the federal level since that 2015 lawsuit which cost them $2 million for false arrest and malicious prosecution.

I was taught the Reid technique in a course i took over 20 years ago. 

It's good if you have NO training.  It can be coercive and you may illicit or interpret a false confession.  
I'm now a 1811 special agent and FBI and FLETC also falls short in their taught techniques.
The worst interview skills training I took was at FLETC.  Given by an instructor who's entire career was at the IRS.

THERE IS NO ONE SIZE FITS ALL.

What it comes down to:

Know yourself and how you come across.
Know the person you are interviewing.
Learn to read the other person
Learn to apply your own, and proven techniques and most importantly BE FLEXIBLE

There are some people that you will never get through and most won't be because of your technique.

What I was told by my instructor in my very first ever class on interviewing/interrogation at a police academy in 1993:

If you are interviewing a suspect (or a non cooperating witness) they will lie.  It's up to you to get ENOUGH of the truth from a statement to corroborate (or disqualify) the accounts that took place with the evidence collected.  No two interviews are the same.

An American woman interviewing a Imam, Sheik, or Mullah from the old country doubtful she will ever get much of anything regardless of what technique short of water boarding.

Reid is big on the "Pause and wait to make the interviewee blurt out more info"... they have some great videos you will watch, but understand, almost all the videos they show is private corporate investigations for theft, and the people being interviewed are there because their job told them to be.

Interviews of suspects and witnesses are not the same, nor are they the same as interviewing someone because their boss made them go to be interviewed. There are a few techniques taught which work pretty well, and there are several that are not going to work at all.

And just because someone looks up and to the left doesn't mean they are lying... (this used to be a biggie that Reid taught)

As stated above, the Feds used to be real big on the Reid technique and the "pause for the cause", but some of the techniques used caused confessions to be thrown out in court, so most of the Reid stuff is no longer taught at FLETC or used by any of the 1811 agencies who do criminal interrogations.

Take the class, enjoy the videos, and take all the different techniques with a grain of salt. There is some good info, but remember the foundation it was built upon. What works in corporate America may not work in a suppression hearing in a criminal court.