PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Wall Street Journal story recognizes the degree to which Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview (FETI) is sweeping across America as "police nation wide are using Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview techniques.' Indeed, we are told that in New York City alone, "A typical five-day training course costs $1,690. For the New York Police Department the course runs seven days and trainers hold sessions at the new police academy in Queens. This year, the NYPD said it is spending $850,000 on FETI. As stressed earlier in this Blog's series on FETI - with reference to a top level U.S. Air Force report explaining why the Air Force has rejected the technique - serious questions have been raised as to the scientific validity of the technique. Which makes me wonder, why are so many police forces spending large amounts of time and money on a technique which may ultimately not survive thorough evaluation through the scientific method?
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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STORY: "Some Officers Are Wary of New SVU Technique Police nationwide are using Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview techniques, but it can be a hard sell," by reporter Zolan Kanno-Youngs, published by The Wall Street Journal on December 10, 2017.
SUB-HEADING: "Police nationwide are using Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview techniques, but it can be a hard sell.
PHOTO CAPTION: "New York Police Department Deputy Chief Michael Osgood, head of the Special Victims Division, said he learned about the Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview training in February 2016."
GIST: "Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview training was developed in 2009 when Russell Strand, a retired army special agent, responded to a mass shooting at the Fort Hood army base in Texas and asked traumatized soldiers what they were thinking, instead of pressing for details about the incident.
He now trains other first responders around the U.S. in the technique. From Oregon to New Hampshire, police departments are learning how to question people using FETI.
Carrie Hull, who works with Mr. Strand at the Oregon-based Certified FETI training first responders, is developing a certificate course to identify departments that are properly using FETI.
A former detective in Ashland, Ore., Ms. Hull knows it can be difficult to get police to change. “My favorite part about law enforcement is they are skeptical of things,” she said.
New York Police Department Deputy Chief Michael Osgood, head of the Special Victims Division, said he learned about the training in February 2016.
After investigating about 14,000 rapes, he knew it was normal for sex-assault victims to forget details of their trauma. He thought FETI could help, but recalled thinking, “I don’t know if I can teach this to the detectives.”
He took one of his more “experienced, gritty” sergeants, Michael Bock, to a week-long FETI training course Oregon in March 2016. Mr. Bock, who retired this year, was open to the program because he knew the traditional approach wasn’t working. “We were like a processing plant,” Mr. Bock said. The victims “come in…and then they move along.”
When Mr. Bock bought in to the technique, most Special Victims Division detectives followed. But there are still doubters, he said.
“They think, now you’re a therapist,” he said of some of his former colleagues. “I don’t believe you’re a therapist, I just think it’s a way of extracting information.” "
The entire story can be found at:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/some-officers-are-wary-of-new-technique-1512933628
See related Wall Street Journal story at the link below: " The NYPD’s Real SVU Is Changing Its Approach to Sex Crimes; Police typically press victims for basic details, but a new technique teaches them to ask more open-ended questions."..."The Forensic Experiential Trauma Interview technique teaches that such details are stored in the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which shuts down during traumatic events. In FETI training, the detectives are instructed to ask broad questions that tap into a victim’s primitive brain, which maintains sensory information of those events. Channeling this part of the brain can result in a more substantial narrative, said Deputy Chief Michael Osgood, head of the Special Victims Division.c“When you say, ‘What did you feel?’ they can now go to their experienced part of the brain and their sensory part of the brain and they now start telling you stuff,” he explained."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/questioning-sex-assault-victims-using-a-new-approach-gets-results-1512934428
