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As Swedish law enforcement embraces interviewing techniques that rely on psychological concepts and interpersonal skills, the teaching of these main ideas needs to be a central part of police education. This presentation willdiscuss how concepts familiar in psychology are understood and taught within Swedish police education today. Usingmaterials from the Swedish police authority, teaching resources, and the scientific literature, this presentation aimsto show how police education is adopting psychological perspectives and how psychological research and educationcan benefit in training police. We will also present future studies to further develop and incorporate psychologicalperspectives in educating law enforcement.

A crucial part of the crime investigation process is the investigative interview. Each interview is aninstance of law enforcement and the public meeting to exchange information. Interviews thus carry a great deal of weight in both the investigation and public relations. Although the main goal of interviewing is often to get information related to an investigation, interviews are also an opportunity for law enforcement to offer support, give information, gain trust, and connect with individuals in the community. Previous research has found that a humane interviewing style that focuses on building trust, good communication, and remaining objective while listening to the otherperson’s account has advantages such as eliciting more detailed accounts and more truthfulinformation. This style of interviewing has also been shown to be strategically beneficial regardless ofif the interviewee is a suspect, witness, or victim. However, researchers are still debating how toimplement empathy and rapport-building behaviors in interviews. There is a great need for researchon how police officers acquire the core skills needed for good communication, building rapport, andestablishing trust during interviews. The aim of this project is to better understand how humane and empathetic interviewing is implemented in Swedish police education in order to achieve a larger emphasis on building and maintaining rapport, empathy, and emotion regulation. This project will use both quantitative and qualitative methods to approach the research questions. The goal is to help the police both in getting as much information as possible, as well as improve the experiences ofthe interview for both the police and the interviewee. Understanding and implementing a morehumane approach to interviewing could help individual officers de-escalate tense situations andnavigate their own stress responses, as well as help strengthen community trust in policing when interacting with interviewees.