Practitioner Case Study: When the going gets TUV: the development of a training in urgent safety interviews

Title: When the going gets TUV: the development of a training in urgent safety interviews

Abstract:

Where the interviewing of suspects arguably is a complex task, conducting an urgent safety interview can be considered its superlative. Instead of collecting evidence with regard to a criminal event that happened in the past – which is the goal of a regular interview –, in an urgent safety interview information needs to be obtained with regard to an ongoing of upcoming criminal event, with the aim of protecting the public from (further) harm (see Alison et al., p. 114-115). It is thus a unique type of interview that can place enormous strain on the interviewer (Alison et al., 2021, p. 134).

Hence, the appropriate recruitment, training and coaching of police officers that have the competencies to conduct these kind of interviews is pivotal for a good outcome. In this practitioner case we will present and discuss the Training Urgent Veiligheidsverhoor (TUV): a training in urgent safety interviews developed by the Netherlands Police Academy. We will describe how it was developed, its recruitment procedure, the training itself and its follow-up.

References:

Alison, L.J., Alison, E.K., Shortland, N.D., Surmon-Böhr, F. (2021). ORBIT: The science of rapport-based interviewing for law enforcement, security, and military. Oxford University Press