PSYC 2400: Interrogations and Decepion

Contents

1. 1. Police Interrogations
   1. 1.1 Reid Model of Interrogation
   2. 1.2 False Confessions
2. 2. Detecting Deception
   1. 2.1 Methods of Detecting Deception

1. Police Interrogations

Purpose of an interrogation (in Canada):

• To obtain a confession.
• To obtain information about the crime.

History of Police Interrogations: in simple terms, we’ve moved away from physical coercion (physical harm, and physical threats) to subtle coercion (such as lying, exaggerating, implicit threats, promises of leniency and assistance, and moral justification).

• Brown vs. Mississippi (’36) and Stunguns vs. NYC Police (‘80s): physical and threatening coercion;
• R. vs. Hoilett (’99): inhumane treatment of a crack addict.

1.1 Reid Model of Interrogation

This model involves the following 3-stages:

1. Gather evidence about the crime and the victim stories.
2. Conduct interview to determine if you need to interrogate them.
• People maintain their innocence so it’s tough to determine if they’re lying so you may not get to the accusatorial interrogation.
3. Conduct accusatorial interrogation (the 9-step process below)
   

Essentially, all we’re trying to do is to tip the scales between the Fear of Confession and the Stress of Deception (increase the Stress of Deception so they tell the truth).

There are 9 steps to the Reid Model:

1. Confront suspect with their guilt
2. Develop psychological themes
3. Interrupt statements of denial
4. Overcome objections
5. Engage suspect
6. Show sympathy and urge truth
7. Offer alternative explanations
8. Develop full confession
9. Obtain written confession

Issues with the Reid Model: you need to be able to detect the deception; interrogator bias (see book) and sometimes you can get false confessions (see below).

In Canada, confessions that are permissible by the courts must be:

• Given voluntarily.
• Given from someone that is competent.
  The benchmarks we’d use to determine how competent and voluntary the confession is, is somewhere between R vs. Oickle (ok!) and R vs. Hoilett (not ok!)
  

Video of the Saskatchewan Murder

1.2 False Confessions

There are 3 types of false confessions:

• Voluntary confessions: (Charles Lindbergh case) this happens outside the context of the interrogation room where a person voluntarily confesses to a crime; this will happen when people are trying to protect someone else (family or friend), when they want notoriety or to improve living conditions.
• Coerced-internalized confessions: (Paul Ingram case) where the suspect comes to believe they committed the crime.
• Coerced-compliant confessions: (Guilford Four case) suspect confesses to flee, avoid pain or for the promise of a reward; they don’t actually believe they committed the crime.
  

Consequences of False Confessions: false confessions increase the change of conviction; false eyewitness testimony is the number 1 reason for wrongful convictions.

2. Detecting Deception

Defining Deception (Ekman): this is where a person intends to mislead another person deliberately without being explicitly asked to do so by the target.

There are 3 Stages of Detecting Detection:

1. Appropriate attention must be given to the relevant cues.
2. These cues must be interpreted as a sign of deceit.
3. Errors can occur at each stage;
• Othello example: where a misinterpretation of cues given off by the individual (we misinterpret stress, anxiety and nervousness as lying).
• Brokhaw Hazard: this is a failure to acknowledge that people differ in the ways they express themselves.

2.1 Methods of Detecting Deception

1. Polygraph Technique: polygraphs measure breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and the amount of sweat; the interviewer needs to analyze the results in order to determine if the person is lying. Here are two commons way to administer a polygraph test:

• The Control Question Test (CQT): the suspect is asked control questions and relevant questions and the interviewer analyzes the difference between the control and relevant questions; the assumption here is that a guilty person will feel more anxiety on relevant question as compared to control questions, whereas an innocent person will feel more anxious on control questions as compared to relevant questions.
• The Guilty Knowledge Test (GKT): you are presented with a set of options; you are instructed to say “no” to all of the options but one is always the “guilty knowledge option”; if the person is more aroused on the guilty knowledge options...
  • They are the offender (generally assumed);
  • They personally know the offender;
  • They have obtained information about the crime (assumed to be illegally).

This technique is not used in Canada because we can’t control the information that’s leaked to the media.

Results: CQTs have widely varying discrepancies in results – they tend to have low rates of accuracy identifying innocent individuals as compared to guilty individuals. GKT has extremely high rates of accuracy correctly identifying innocent individuals with slightly lower accuracy rates in identifying guilty individuals.

Ways to Confuse the Polygraph:

• Personality – psychopaths have been examined very closely but they can’t fool polygraphs (they just have different levels of arousal);
• Drugs and Alcohol – some work, some don’t;
• Physical Manoeuvres – some are quite effective.

2. Verbal Cues vs. Non-Verbal Cues: people can use verbal cues (high pitch, hesitant answers, shorter duration, slower rates of speech) and non-verbal cues (increased eye blinks, increased pupil dilation, increased rubbing and scratching, and decrease in limb movements) to discern perception.

In the past, training didn’t effectively improve the rate at which people could discern deception – the results didn’t generalize across individuals. Now we’ve developed better training so we can increase the accuracy of detecting deception.