Psy 610 help

Police Interrogation Tactics

Lana Eliot

Psychology 610

Professor Unger

September 11, 2017

POLICE INTERROGATION TACTICS 1

Introduction

Over the past years, the topics of police interrogations and false confessions have received a great deal of deserved attention from the scientific community as well as the popular press. The society has been treated to high profile cases of proven false confession, such as the Michael Crowe and Joshua Treadway case; which provided a tragic example of the cracks/gaping holes in the criminal justice system. In this scenario, Michael Crowe, who was 14 years old then, had his sister Stephanie murdered in their home. This led to a total of nine hours of intense interrogation by the police investigating the matter. The investigation included several false evidence ploys such as the claims that he failed the infallible Computer Voice Stress Analyzer test, and that the deceased had Michael’s hair in her hand.

As a result, Michael succumbed to the pressure and falsely confessed. Again, Joshua who was Michael’s friend and believed to be co-perpetrator, was interrogated on tape for a total of 22 hours. He too eventually falsely confessed. However, Michael and Joshua were so lucky to have their innocence revealed when Stephanie’s blood was discovered on the sweatshirt of Richard Tuite, a homeless drifter, who was subsequently tried and convicted.

Now, cases such as Crowe’s and Treadway’s have been critical in increasing public awareness concerning the influence of problematic interrogation techniques that leads to false confessions. This is in addition to the inadequacy of current safeguards within the legal system that might prevent such mishaps of justice. As a result, psychologists are increasingly being asked to provide expert testimony on these issues in the courtroom (Costanzo & Leo, 2007; Davis & Leo, 2006; Fulero, 2004; Quintieri & Weiss, 2005).

This paper provides review of literature of issues related to the tactics of interrogation of suspects by police. The paper attempts to make clear the distinction between the artful practice of interrogation and the science comprising the expert witness’ research/testimony. In disputed confession cases, there is a serious need of triers of fact to weigh the research that supports testimonies by experts against the legitimacy of the interrogation techniques that resulted to the alleged confession. It is in this context that forms the basis of this paper.

Literature Review

Police Interrogation: An Overview of the Techniques and Controversies

Contemporary interrogation techniques must be discussed in regard to false confessions, particularly those that emanate from police pressure. There are several exemplary and comprehensive reviews of police interrogation techniques and related research now available (Bull &Soukara, 2011; Kassin, 2005; Lassiter, 2004). Basically, contemporary police interrogators utilize “psychology” in their efforts to obtain confessions (Heuer & Sivasubramaniam, 2012 Inbau et al, 2001; Kassin, 2005).

However, it is important not to mistake the process of interrogation as a “science,” like psychology. Neither are interrogators trained in the scientific methods, nor do they employ the methods. This generally involves the formulation and testing of hypotheses in support of or falsification of a general theory.

This review focuses on three controversial aspects that highlight the non-scientific nature of interrogation. These are; the detection of deception, the presumption of guilt, and the techniques employed in real-world interrogations. As will become clear, these aspects are intertwined. The interrogator’s perceived ability to detect when suspects are deceitful is the process that leads to perceptions of guilt, and to the interrogation techniques employed thereafter (Heuer & Sivasubramaniam, 2012). At the point of interrogation, this process of biased hypothesis testing on the part of the interrogator can lead to the use of these other problematic tactics, such as confronting suspects with guilt and disallowing denials, questioning suspects for long periods, presenting false evidence, and minimizing responsibility. Such techniques were developed absent scientific inquiry or verification that might allow for an assessment of their diagnostic value in extracting true confessions of guilt. As discussed below, are the concepts and controversies and consequently the psychological research that have been brought forward to address them.

Deception Detection

An important distinction between interviews and interrogations is often made in manuals of police interrogation (Inbau et al., 2001). During an interview period, an investigator is usually trained to conduct a non-accusatorial interview to determine whether the person of interest is indeed “the suspect,” thus should be formally interrogated (Bull & Soukara, 2011).

As a matter of fact, a major aspect of this determination of guilt is the reliance on non-verbal behavioral cues and analyses of linguistic styles that are believed to indicate deception (Muraski, 2016). For instance, according to Heuer &Sivasubramaniam (2012), Reid and associates offer training in human lie detection that is purported to increase the accuracy with which investigators can distinguish between truth and deceit to 85%.

Nevertheless, as discussed below, this paper does not support the theory that behaviors or response styles reliably differentiate truth from deception unlike nervousness, stress, or being too hot. Again, scientific evidence has not supported the notion that investigators are adept at detecting deception in interviews irrespective of whether the suspect is guilty or innocent.

Presumption of Guilt

Basically, interrogations are guilt-presumptive processes that are focused on extracting a confession by suspects who are believed to be guilty of the crime (Meissner & Kassin, 2004). As such, some interrogators claim that they do not interrogate innocent people (Kassin, 2005). For instance, Inbau et al (2001) suggested that interrogation procedures need only to be applied against those found to be deceptive in a pre-interrogation interview, and as such believed to be guilty of the crime.

In presuming guilt, the potential for “confirmation bias” is inherent. Generally, the use of questionable deception detection techniques and a strong presumption of guilt by an investigator can be disastrous to innocent suspects, putting them at risk for the pressures of interrogation (Hershberger &Lindsay, 2005; Kassin 2005).

Modern Interrogation Techniques

Since time immemorial, investigators have used a wide variety of techniques that are intended to breakdown a suspect’s resistance and yield a confession. Interrogation techniques have evolved from overtly coercive, “third degree” tactics such as extreme sleep deprivation and beatings to modern-day techniques psychologically based techniques that are more subtle but effective. One such heralded and widely used technique in the U.S. is the Reid Technique of investigative interviewing.

Basically, studies have demonstrated that particular methods used in the Reid technique can increase the risk that innocent suspects will make confessions during police interrogations, thereby placing these innocent suspects at risk of wrongful conviction (Heuer, & Sivasubramaniam, 2012). The Reid technique outlines two primary stages of interrogation: (a) the preinterrogation interview and (b) the interrogation. Research has shown that people trained in deception detection according to the Reid technique are more confident but less accurate in their judgments of the target’s guilt (Kassin& Fong, 1999).

Investigator response bias is what police officers refer to as an exaggerated tendency to judge the target as deceptive. As routinely practiced, the pre-interrogation interview phase of the Reid technique puts suspects in danger of being judged deceptive by interrogators who are low on lie-detection accuracy, high in confidence, and biased toward judging innocent targets as deceptive.

During the interrogation phase, the Reid technique is guilt presumptive; the interrogator has already confidently determined during the preinterrogation interview that the suspects guilty. The interrogation phase provides further potential for wrongful conviction, through the use of particular confrontational interrogation tactics.

Psychological Research Relevant to these Controversies

As a matter of fact, police interrogation techniques can be successful in soliciting admissions of guilt from true perpetrators, and it is unlikely that the use of such techniques yields more false than true confessions. However, the controversy associated with interrogation methods is that these techniques can actually result into false confessions when applied on innocent suspects (Muraski, 2016).

Even though there has been a notable surge in the number of false confessions that are discussed in the media, the actual rate of false confessions is difficult, if not impossible, to determine (Leo & Ofshe, 1998). Documentation by Drizin and Leo (2004) found 125 cases of proven false confession in the U.S. since the 1966 Miranda v. Arizona decision. Again, Davis and Leo (2006) cited more than 300 cases of false confession in the literature. Essentially, there are a lot of compelling arguments on why the current number of identified false confessions represents just the tip of the iceberg (Drizin & Leo, 2004; Gross et al, 2005).

Conclusion

Generally, there is a strong belief that much is known regarding to factors that can lead to false confessions. As such the current police interrogation techniques and practice represent little more than an art and much less of a science. Conclusively, a lot needs to be done in terms of research and the practice of contemporary interrogation techniques and legal admissibility standards.

References

Costanzo, M., & Leo, R. A. (2007). Research and expert testimony on interrogations and confessions. In M. Costanzo, D. Krauss, & K. Pezdek Expert psychological testimony for the courts. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bull, R., &Soukara, S. (2011). Four studies of what really happens in police interviews. Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association

Davis, D., & Leo, R. (2006). Strategies for preventing false confessions and their consequences: Practical psychology for forensic investigations and prosecutions. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons.

Drizin, S. A., & Leo, R. A. (2004). The problem of false confessions in the post-DNA world. North Carolina Law Review, 82, 891-1008.

Fulero, S. M. (2004). Expert psychological testimony on the psychology of interrogations and confessions. Interrogations, confessions, and entrapment. New York: Kluwer Academic.

Gross, S. R., Jacoby, K., Matheson, D. J., Montgomery, N., & Patil, S. (2005). Exonerations in the United States 1989 through 2003. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 95, 523-560.