THE INTERVIEW CRIMINAL USE BEFORE ATTACKING

What most people picture when they think about violence is the moment it becomes undeniable. The shove, the raised voice, the swing. Something visible, something obvious, something they can point to and say, “that’s when it started," but the reality is, by the time it looks like violence, most of it has already happened. The decision has already been made. The outcome is already leaning in a direction, and what people consistently miss, what they fail to see or choose not to recognise, is the part that comes before it all: the quiet, subtle, often socially disguised process where someone is being assessed, weighed up, and selected. The interview.

It doesn’t look like an interview in the traditional sense. There’s no formal structure, no clear beginning or end, no questions written down, but make no mistake, it's a process of gathering information. A criminal, whether consciously or instinctively, is trying to figure out one thing above everything else: can I do this without resistance, without consequence, and with the highest chance of success? and everything they do in that initial contact is designed to answer that question.

It might start with something that feels harmless. A question. “Got the time?” “You got a light?” “Can you help me out for a second?” On the surface, it’s nothing, social, normal. The kind of interaction people are conditioned to respond to without hesitation, and that’s exactly why it works, because most people are raised to be polite, to engage, to not ignore someone speaking to them. They feel the social pressure to respond, even if something underneath doesn’t feel quite right. That moment, right there, is often the first stage of the interview, because what the person is watching isn’t just whether you answer. It’s how you answer. Your tone. Your eye contact. Your posture. Your awareness of space. Whether you stop moving. Whether you step closer. Whether you angle your body in a way that exposes you. Whether you look around or stay fixed on them. All of these things feed into a rapid, ongoing assessment. You might think you’re just being polite. They’re deciding whether you’re a viable target, and it’s not always verbal. Sometimes the interview starts before a single word is spoken. It’s the way someone watches you from a distance. The way they position themselves in your path. The way they adjust when you move. People often describe it as a feeling, something they can’t quite explain, but they felt like they were being watched, or followed, or singled out. That feeling is often the recognition of being assessed, even if the conscious mind hasn’t caught up yet.

What’s important to understand is that this isn’t always a calculated, step by step process in the way people imagine. It’s not always a criminal standing there thinking through a checklist. A lot of it is instinctive. Pattern recognition built from experience. They’ve seen enough reactions, enough behaviours, enough outcomes to know what “easy” looks like, and they’re looking for that. Compliance. Distraction. Hesitation. Someone who freezes. Someone who prioritises politeness over boundaries. Someone who doesn’t look like they’ll make things difficult, and this is where people get caught, not because they’re weak, but because they’re conditioned. Conditioned to be agreeable. Conditioned to not make a scene. Conditioned to avoid appearing rude or confrontational. That conditioning creates a gap between what they feel and how they act. They might sense something is off, but they override it. They answer the question. They stop walking. They engage longer than they should, and every second they stay in that interaction, they’re giving more information away.

The interview can escalate in layers. If the initial approach gets a compliant response, it often moves to something slightly more intrusive. Closing distance. Asking for more than what was initially requested. Changing the tone. Maybe there’s a shift from friendly to more assertive, testing how that affects you. Do you push back? Do you comply again? Do you even notice the shift? Each stage is a probe, a way of seeing how far they can go before you react, and what most people don’t realise is that failure to act is, in itself, an answer. If you don’t challenge the encroachment, if you don’t reclaim your space, if you don’t disengage, that gets read as permission. Not consciously in a moral sense, but functionally. It tells the other person that you are unlikely to disrupt what they’re planning. That you’re manageable.

There’s also the role of distraction within the interview. Questions that pull your attention away from your environment. Something that makes you look down, check your phone, turn your body, split your focus, because divided attention is vulnerability. The more your awareness narrows, the less you see, the slower you react, and again, this is being watched. Not just whether you comply, but how it affects your awareness.

What complicates all of this is that the behaviours being exploited are, in normal life, positive traits. Being approachable. Being helpful. Being polite. These aren’t weaknesses in themselves, but in the wrong context, with the wrong person, at the wrong time, they become openings, and the inability to switch them off when needed is where the real risk sits, because the safest response during an unwanted interview isn’t to play along better. It’s to recognise it for what it is and break it. Early. Cleanly. Without apology. That might mean not answering at all. It might mean a short, direct response while continuing to move. It might mean creating space, changing direction, or using your voice in a way that signals awareness and boundaries. What matters is that you don’t stay in the role they’re trying to place you in, and that’s the part people struggle with. Not the physical side, but the psychological permission to disengage. To ignore. To say no. To prioritise their own safety over someone else’s perception of them, because breaking the interview often feels socially uncomfortable, even when it’s the right thing to do, but once you start to see it, once you understand that these interactions aren’t always what they appear to be, your perception shifts. You stop viewing them purely through a social lens and start recognising the underlying intent. You become harder to read, harder to assess, harder to control, and that alone changes the equation, because criminals, whether they realise it or not, are looking for certainty. They want a predictable outcome. The moment you disrupt that, the moment you introduce doubt, unpredictability, resistance, even at a subtle level, you often move yourself out of that “easy” category, and in many cases, that’s enough.

Violence doesn’t begin with the strike. It begins with the selection, and the interview is where that selection is tested. If you understand that, if you can recognise it as it’s happening rather than after the fact, you give yourself a window. A moment where the situation is still fluid, still undecided, and what you do in that moment matters far more than anything that comes after.