Worse or Worser:
Compromising Reliability

(approx 3 min read)

By Stan B. Walters | The Lie Guy®
ORCID 0009-0002-1063-0519

Minimizing the Conduct Can Compromise the Information

“Did you do it on purpose, or was it just an accident?” “It wasn’t supposed to go that far, was it?” “You were going to put it back.” These statements do more than encourage someone to talk. They supply explanations that minimize intent, responsibility, or the seriousness of the conduct. Many interview and interrogation training programs teach this approach as a way to obtain an admission. It sounds like a win for the interviewer: make the conduct easier to acknowledge, and the subject will acknowledge it. But minimization can compromise reliability in three ways: a guilty subject may admit to less than what actually happened, the explanation may be understood as a trade for leniency, and an innocent subject may agree simply to escape the pressure. Making an admission easier to obtain does not make it more reliable.

The Subject Accepts the Explanation You Supplied

“It wasn’t supposed to go that far, was it?” Before the subject has explained their intentions, the interviewer has supplied an answer. A person who acted deliberately may readily accept the suggestion that the outcome was unintended. Consider a hypothetical fatal hit-and-run investigation. Suggesting that the person was driving under the influence or driving recklessly may offer an explanation they are willing to accept while concealing more serious conduct. The problem is not simply that the subject admits to a lesser offense. The interviewer has helped construct an account that may misrepresent what happened and why. Once that account is accepted, further questioning may reinforce it rather than examine it. You may have obtained agreement with your explanation while leaving the actual conduct unresolved.

Minimizing Responsibility Can Imply Lesser Consequences

“Did you do it on purpose, or was it just an accident?” To the interviewer, that may sound like a useful way to move past a denial. To the subject, it may communicate that one answer offers a better outcome. Similarly, “You were going to put it back” supplies an innocent-sounding intention that the subject has not independently described. The implied message can become, “Accept this explanation, and what you did won’t be treated as seriously.” That is where the “confess to something not as bad, and we both win” attitude creates trouble. The exchange may later be examined in court as a possible trade for leniency. The interviewer must consider what the minimized explanation offers the subject, not merely what answer it produces.

An Innocent Person May Accept the Escape

Minimization also gives an innocent person an explanation to agree with. During a long or arduous interview, someone who has repeatedly denied involvement may become increasingly concerned with ending the immediate pressure. “It was just an accident” can begin to sound like a way out, even when there was no involvement to explain. The interviewer may interpret that agreement as a breakthrough without recognizing why it occurred. Interviews should not become prolonged exercises in wearing down resistance. If the subject is accepting a supplied explanation to obtain relief, the interviewer’s apparent success conceals a serious reliability problem. The person may be telling you what will end the interview rather than what happened during the incident.

Stop Supplying the Explanation

The danger of minimization begins when the interviewer makes the conduct easier to admit by supplying a less serious explanation. That explanation may conceal deliberate behavior, suggest favorable treatment, or become an innocent person’s perceived escape from pressure. Investigative interviewing requires an account that can be explored, evaluated, and independently corroborated. Ask the person to describe what happened. Explore what they were thinking, what they intended, and what they did before and afterward without supplying those answers for them. Examine the details against the evidence, including information that challenges your understanding. Before deciding that minimization “worked,” ask what it actually accomplished. Did you discover the subject’s account, or persuade the subject to accept yours?

Choices made in the interview room eventually play out in a courtroom™

© Copyright 2026 by Stan B. Walters. All Rights Reserved.

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Related Video:
Inside the Interview Room #55 — Watch on YouTube
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