PSYCH 3CC3 Lecture 2: Interviewing & Interrogation

694 views17 pages

amberdonkey208

19 Jun 2018

School

Department

Course

Professor

For unlimited access to Class Notes, a Class+ subscription is required.

In the media …

You almost never see interview depictions that are both accurate and

appropriate.

Unless in a British crime drama.

Interview vs Interrogation According to Reid

Reid technique is widely used in the United States.

Interview: a non-accusatory interaction between investigator and person of

interest with the goal of allowing investigators to gather information pertaining

to a crime.

Non-accusatory; no assumptions are made about the person's

involvement.

○

Purpose is gathering information

○

May be conducted early in an investigation

○

May be conducted in a variety of environments

○

Free-flowing and relatively unstructured

○

Interviewer takes written notes; slow pace

○

Interrogation: accusatory discussion with an individual who is believed to have

guilty information with the goal of getting the person to confess (learn the

truth).

Accusatory

○

Purpose is to learn the truth

○

Conducted only when the investigator is certain of suspect's guilt.

Very difficult in practice.

○

Controlled environment

Careful controls to maximize likelihood of confession.

○

Involves active persuasion

Person is pressed to confess to the crime using various techniques

(e.g., "good cop, bad cop")

○

Notes taken only when the suspect has told the truth.

No note taking throughout the interrogation process.

○

Why No Good Interviews on TV?

Police are not trained in appropriate interview techniques.

Appropriate interview techniques are seldom used in practice.

Appropriate interview = boring TV

Aggressive interrogations are more entertaining.

○

Good Interview Protocols

Establish rapport with the interviewee.1.

Interviewee understands the "rule" of the interview.2.

Use open-ended questioning.3.

No interviewer bias. 4.

Aims of Rapport-Building

Interviewee does most of the talking

Much like a therapist-patient relationship.a.

Need to be calm/relaxed. b.

Interviewer conveys non-judgmental, non-coercive understanding and

acceptance.

Establishes a relationship and allows the interviewee to open-up.a.

Interviewer creates relaxed, informal feeling.3.

Instructions to Interviewee

Report everything

Never assume the interviewer knows something.a.

The interviewee is the expert.b.

Do not guess or fabricate.

No "I think" a.

Only tell us what really happened/what you witnessed.b.

Ask if question is unclear.

Very important in multi-cultural, multi-lingual societies. a.

Correct interviewer's errors.4.

Use comfortable language.5.

Repeated questions do not = errors.

Questions are repeated to help the interviewer gain a full picture. a.

Use Open-Ended Questions

Most often violated in real life and on tv, but these are extremely important.

E.g., "tell me what happened"

Foster fuller memory retrieval.1.

Greater accuracy.2.

Avoid problems with specific questions.

They are more prone to errors (e.g., leading questions may completely

make someone lie.)

Lead to overestimate of language abilities.

Especially if English is the interviewee's second language, they may

use the interviewer's language in their response.

Biased Interviews

Assumption of guilt or involvement.

Report interview based on bias.

E.g., if you believe someone is guilt, you'll interpret their responses as

indicating guilt, even though that might not be the case.

Overlook inconsistent information.

Confirmation bias: you avoid things that would change your current

beliefs or opinions.

Ask misleading/leading, biased questions.

Misleadinga.

Leading questions are not permitted in court because they suggest an

answer.

Very common mistake made on tv and in real life.c.

May distort witness testimony.

Leading questions bias the witnesses memory. a.

They may answer based on what they now think is correct. b.

U.S. Dept. of Justice Interview Guidelines (1999)

Ask open-ended questions

Avoid leading questions

Caution witness not to guess

Ask witness to imagine circumstances of the event

Encourage nonverbal communication (e.g., gestures, drawings, use of objects)

Avoid interrupting the witness

Ask witness not to discuss the incident with other witnesses

Ask witness to avoid contact with media, and with media accounts of the event.

Encourage witness to make contact again if more remembers.

Thank witness for cooperation.

Increases likelihood of future contact; in conjunction with building

rapport.

○

Wright & Alison (2004)

Analyzed 19 Canadian police interviews for strategies inconsistent with the literature

on effective interviews:

Too many interruptions of witnesses.

Many more closed than open-ended questions.

Talked too much - 33% of speaking time.

Data suggest police "help" witness construct event, then use yes/no question to

confirm it.

Suggest police ask question to confirm pre-existing assumptions about the

event.

Compo et al (2012)

Surveyed Florida police interviews for adherence to 199 U.S. DOJ interview guidelines.

59% of questions where yes/no

26% of questions closed-ended; 11% open-ended

87% of interviews contained leading questions

80% of interviews involved interrupting the witness

44% of interviews involved negative rapport-building

Coded 26 South Florida police interview transcripts for compliance with National Inst.

Justice guidelines.

Mean positive techniques per interview:

Long pauses (5.0)

○

Positive rapport building (1.8)

○

Context reinstatement (0.08)

○

Encouraging visualization, mental imagery (0.02)

○

Encouraging witness to take time (0.02)

○

Explaining explicit expectations (0.02)

○

Remind witness not to guess (0.02)

○

Open-ended questions (only 11% of all questions)

○

Overall, low incidence of positive techniques except for the long pauses.

○

Mean negative techniques per interview:

Suggestive or leading questions (5.9)

○

Interrupting the witness (5.7)

○

Multiple questions (3.8)

○

Negative rapport building (1.13)

○

Distractions (e.g., background noise) (0.65)

○

Questions incompatible with train of thought (0.42)

○

Complex questions (0.10)

○

Overall, very high incidence.

○

Very few positive things, many more negative.

Generally, we're better at interviews and following guidelines in

commonwealth countries.

Where Are We Now?

Interviewers use short-answer questions.

Interviewers use leading questions.

No relationship between knowing best practices and using them.

More open-ended questions after training on cognitive interview.

Cognitive Interview

Common on television programs.

(1) Reinstate the original context.

Creates a mental representation of the place/time in which the crime

took place.

○

Imagine the situation.

○

(2) Report everything.

"Tell us everything you know"

○

Usually the responses are very inaccurate

○

TV/media representations are inaccurate -- they show an enhanced recall

for the event (e.g., suddenly remembering the license plate of a car that

drove by at the scene of the crime)

○

(3) Vary the order of retrieval

First go chronologically, then maybe go backwards through the series of

events.

○

(4) Change perspectives

Most controversial part of cognitive interviews.

○

E.g., "What would you have seen from standing over there?"

○

Studies indicate that this method does seem to enhance recall.

Specifically the aspect where people are asked to imagine the emotions

they felt.

○

Emotions get tagged to memories and may serve as retrieval cues for your

memories.

○

Cognitive Interview: Brunel, Py and Lounay (2013)

Participants recall events in video they have seen.

Change in perspective (CP): "I would like you to tell me about the event a

second time, by trying to adopt the perspective of another person in the video"

Open-depth (OD): "During a first recall, people often concentrate on certain

types of details, mainly actions and cannot report everything they have in mind.

Please, tell me once again everything you say/remember about the event, and

focus your attention on all of the little details you did not have the possibility to

report. It doesn't matter if you repeat yourself. Give as much details as you can.

If it helps, freeze on some of the images you remember, and describe each of

them."

Results:

More recall with OD, with no reduction of accuracy.

○

Ratio of new/repeated info is higher with OD than with instruction to

recall a second time.

○

Hypnosis and Recall

Not seen in crime dramas.

It is not admissible in North American and most European courts.

Hypnosis reduces overall accuracy.

More detail recalled.

More errors made - you remember more false information.

Higher confidence in true and false recall.

Aside: hypnosis can let you do positive things for people that you couldn't do for them

in a non-hypnotic state, it's not all bad. But, accurate recall is not one of them.

The Reid Model of Interrogation

Developed in 1940s and 1950s

John E. Reid and Associates

Reid was a polygrapher and interrogator.

○

Successful because he got a lot of confessions.

○

Dominant interrogation technique in the United States (not in Canada)

Reid Model Assumptions

(1) Many cases solvable only through confessions.

There simply isn't enough evidence to get people convicted without

confessions.

○

(2) Guilt admitted only after several hours of private interrogation.

(3) 'Less refined' methods required with suspects.

35 years ago, 'less refined' meant violence.

○

Now, we see strongly coercive techniques: lying, deception, psychological

manipulation.

○

People argue and studies show that the coercive methods may lead to false

confessions.

Very controversial.

○

The way confessions obtained with this technique is received in courts

varies.

Some are rejected because of strongly coercive nature.

Depends on jurisdiction.

It's common for defense attorneys to ask for them to be thrown

out.

○

Reid Model of Interrogation

Part I: Gather Evidence, interview victim and witnesses.

General police work.

○

Part II: Non-accusatory interview to assess possible guilt.

Behaviour analysis interview (BAI).

○

You're looking for liars, looking for guilt.

○

This step is flawed because it is hard to determine deception.

○

What the Reid Model says is associated with lying is actually more closely

related to truth-telling.

○

Part III: Accusatory interview if suspect is deemed guilty based on the BAI.

Reid Model, Part III

(1) Confront suspect with guilt.

E.g., "We know you're involved."

○

(2) Offer acceptable reasons for crime.

E.g., downplay crime, make it sound reasonable for anyone to have done

it.

○

Allow them to agree.

○

(3) Rebuff suspect's denials.

Might have to physically reject denial (e.g., putting hands up, shaking

head.)

○

Remind them that you know it was them (e.g., suggest that you have

evidence or eyewitnesses even if this information is false)

○

(3) Reduce psychological distance.

Physically set up the room to emphasize guilt (e.g., have large files on the

table to make it look like you have a lot of evidence)

○

Move closer, place hand on them.

○

Show your sympathy.

○

(4) Show sympathy and understanding.

Goes with reducing psychological distance.

○

(5) Offer alternative reasons for the crime.

Usually offer two alternate reasons for the crime - both include admission

to the crime, but one seems less bad and more plausible.

○

(6) Enlarge details into fuller confession.

This is where the interviewer takes notes - following the confession.

○

(7) Get suspect to write signed confession.

How Long Does It Take to Get a Confession?

As little as 3-4 hours, but sometimes can take a few days.

Exerts a lot of psychological stress on the individuals.

Therefore, leads to false confessions in many cases.

○

Good Cop, Bad Cop

Minimization (good cop):

Sympathy, excuses, justifications.

○

Maximize (bad cop):

Intimidation, exaggeration, deception.

○

This technique can be effective, but it's never really been tested.

Problems with Reid Model

Hard to detect deception in initial interview.

Other people have studied this and found that what the Reid Model looks

at is not associated with deception.

○

Belief in suspect's guilt introduces bias.

Changes behaviour of interrogator and suspect which may distort

interrogator's methods.

○

Coercive techniques may lead to false confessions.

Interrogations are you usually performed on psychologically vulnerable

people (e.g., young, just lost a loved one/friend, anxious about being with

the police)

○

Using coercive techniques on these people can lead to false confessions.

○

"If you can't lie to the police, why can they lie to you?"

○

Example: John Reid himself lied to Dan about results of his polygraph

regarding the rape and murder of his wife. Dan confessed after finding

out that he failed.

Many years later, confession from the actual murderer was found.

Reid and Associates has to settle lawsuits for cases like this all the

time, but it's just the cost of business for them -- the Reid Method is

still the favoured method throughout the United States and many

other countries.

○

Scharf Model of Interrogation

Named for Joachim Scharf, a very effective WWII German Luftwaffe interrogator

of 500 UK and US fighter pilots.

His technique is believed to lead to less false confessions than Reid.

Used friendly, likeable, non-coercive methods.

Scharf identified three strategies used by his prisoners:

Say very little during the interrogation.1.

Decide what interrogator wants; do not provide it.2.

Do not deny or hold back information that the interrogator already has.3.

Techniques to counter prisoner strategies:

Be friendly and conversational.1.

Do not press for information. Tell stories that prisoners can correct or

add to.

Trick prisoners into correcting/adding info.i.

Display existing knowledge.3.

Ask for confirmation or disconfirmation.

E.g., "to make sure you are a flyer and not a spy, I need to confirm a

few details."

By making them confirm, they end up giving out information. ii.

Testing the Scharf Model: Granhag, Montecinos and Oleszkiewicz (2015)

Participants told about planned terrorist attack, and then asked to strike balance

between revealing too much or too little in subsequent interview.

Three conditions:

Scharf method

○

Open-ended questions only

○

Specific questions only

○

Results:

No differences in amount of new information gathered.

○

Scharf group less sure of interrogator's objectives.

○

Scharf, open-ended groups underestimate amount of info revealed.

This is very good from an interrogation POV.

○

Some argue that this research model isn't the best way to look at this, but

Scharf method has been shown to be very effective.

Interactive Process Model of Interrogation

Kelly et al (2013): Identified 6 areas of variation in interview and interrogation

techniques.

(1) Rapport and relationship building

(2) Context manipulation

(3) Emotion provocation

(4) Collaboration

(5) Confrontation/competition

(6) Presentation of evidence

Interactive Process Model: Rapport and Relationship Building

Find common ground, shared experiences - building trust.

In Reid, we try to go against this.

○

Show kindness and respect.

Identify and meet basic needs.

Be patient.

Present self in role other than interrogator (e.g., "I am here to help you.")

Appear similar to source (e.g., find common identities, use similar language,

etc.)

Make them see you as part of their in-group.

○

Use active listening skills (e.g., eye contact, nodding, summarizing source

statements)

Again, very much like a therapist-patient encounter.

○

Make yourself source's lifeline.

You're the connection between the interviewee/suspect and the legal

system.

○

This can make you into an ally - you're their only hope.

○

Goes with appearing similar to the source.

○

Interactive Process Model: Emotion Provocation

Appeal to self-interest, conscience, religion.

E.g., "you will feel better if you just get this off of your chest."

○

Interrogate source while stressed; capitalize on capture shock.

No time to practice story.

○

Better change of passing their individual defenses.

○

Identify and exaggerate or reduce fears.

Maximize or minimize the consequences or concerns.

○

Instill hopelessness in source.

E.g., "There's no way out of this. No matter what, we know you're guilty …

we just need to know why/how you did it."

○

Flatter source.

May lead them to brag about what they have done.

○

Need to know the psychology of the person being interrogated to know if

this will be effective.

○

Playing to their weaknesses.

○

Encourage source to take responsibility for the outcome.

E.g., "You decide if you want to do this the easy or the hard way. You're

responsible for how this goes down."

○

Interactive Process Model: Confrontation or Competition

Emphasize authority and expertise over source.

E.g., "Bad Cop"

○

Threaten consequences for non-cooperation.

Express frustration, impatience, or anger.

Use deception.

E.g., tell people you have incriminating evidence that you don't actually

have.

○

Deception isn't allowed to be used in court, but it's ok in an interrogation.

○

Repeat same questions; ask a series of questions without allowing the source to

respond.

Repeating questions when you don't get the answer you want pressure

the individual to give a "better answer"

○

Be unfriendly, insulting.

Reid, unlike Scharf.

○

Good cop/bad cop.

Accuse source of being involved or of being someone that they are not.

E.g., "We have the evidence, we know you did it. We just need to know

why."

○

Disparage information provided by the source.

E.g., "We already know that! We need more than that!"

○

Interactive Process Model: Collaboration/Cooperation

More Scharf-like.

Offer rewards or reinforcement for cooperation.

E.g., cigarettes, candy, encouragement, respect.

○

Make bargains with the source.

E.g., "I'll speak to the Crown Attorney if you cooperate."

○

Present self as having the job of supporting innocence or cooperation to

authorities.

Interactive Process Model: Presentation of Evidence

Confront source with real evidence of involvement.

Often, interview room will have a stack of folders/papers to show

awareness of the suspect's guilt - whether you have real evidence or not.

○

Confront source with fabricated or unsubstantiated evidence of involvement.

Bluff source with supposed evidence you have.

Use polygraph or other physiological measures.

Tell people results that demonstrate guilt no matter the actual

measures/results.

○

Can't use this false information (and often you can't even use these

measures) in court.

○

Show photos or witness statements.

Can be real or false, but they are usually real.

○

Use evidence to show that source can provide no more useful information.

Interactive Process Model: Context Manipulation

Broadest area

Conduct interrogation in a small room.

Move interrogation from formal room to information setting.

Makes things more relaxed and less defensive.

○

Create setting that is culturally attractive.

This again will put people at easy and make them less defensive.

○

Consider the arrangement of chairs and other furniture.

Don't put a table or something between you and the interviewee.

○

You don't want to give them a guard or barrier.

○

Consider the optimal time of day.

Might depend on the psychology of the person.

○

Choose the interrogator's clothing appropriately.

Depends on the image you want to present.

○

U.S. Senate Report: CIA Interrogation Program

Bush Administration allowed "enhanced interrogation methods" later deemed

as "torture" by the Obama Administration.

Detainees subjected to interrogation methods not approved by Department of

Justice, or not authorized by CIA Headquarters.

CIA justified methods on inaccurate claim of effectiveness.

Enhanced interrogation ineffective in gaining cooperation or intelligence.

PEACE Model of Interrogation

Became the standard model in Britain and spread to other commonwealth

countries including Canada.

PEACE

Planning and Preparation

○

Engage and Explain

○

Account

○

Closure

○

Evaluation

○

PEACE: Planning and Preparation

General police work

Define aims and objectives of interview

Get background information

Understand the points to prove

Assess available evidence

Assess what evidence is needed

Set the stage for the interview

Poor Planning Leads To:

Overlooking important evidence.

Not identifying inconsistencies and lies.

Taking breaks to get more info.

Needing more interviews with the suspect.

Losing control of the interview.

PEACE: Engage and Explain

Same as the standard procedures for conducting interviews.

Initial good impression; politeness, courtesy and respect.

Respond to interviewee's needs, concerns.

Empathize while remaining objective.

Explain reason for interview; emphasize interviewee's importance.

Interviewee should feel free to ask questions.

PEACE: Account

Get interviewee's free-recall account.

Free-recall = "what happened?"

Expand and clarify that account.

Challenge that account, if needed.

E.g., only if you knowledge is contradictory/conflicting.

Only do this in non-accusatory language.

PEACE: Closure

Last phase in the presence of the interviewee.

Review interviewee's account to ensure mutual agreement.

Ensure interviewee has given all available information.

Explain next steps in process.

PEACE: Evaluation

Post-interview analysis done by the investigator.

Were the interview objectives achieved?

Impact of interview on investigation?

Could he interview be improved?

Self-evaluation to better their skills.

False Confession

False confession: information in the confession is false; an individual confessed

to a crime they did not commit.

Retracted confession: confession may be true, but the suspect repudiates it.

Disputed confession: Is confession legally admissible as evidence?

Problem?

What can be a more obvious sign of guilt than a confession?

We have a tendency to believe all confessions because the idea of a false

confession is not fathomable.

This really affects jurors.

Examples:

Darrel Parker

Came home to find his wife raped and killed.

He was given a polygraph.

The interrogator, John Reid, told Darrel that he had failed the polygraph

and proceeded to interrogate him.

The news of his failure made him confess.

But he did not actually fail.

Darrel's confession was false, but he was not exonerated until years later

when they found the confession of the man who actually did rape and kill

Nancy.

Trisha Meili & the Central Park 5

She was jogging when she was beaten, raped and basically left for dead.

5 African-American and Latino teenagers were in the park when the

incident took place.

They were all coercively interrogated without the presence of a parent or

a lawyer, despite being minors.

They were told that if they confessed, they could go home.

4/5 boys confessed, but the 5th boy's mom came in time to stop the

interrogation.

Their confessions didn't match at all, but they were still convicted.

12 years later, they were cleared due to DNA evidence.

Match was found to a known rapist who admitted to and had

details of the crime.

Donald Trump still thought they were guilty - as did many people - even

after their exoneration.

Why did people think they were guilty?

Anchoring (aka first impressions)

Racism

False Confessions

Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of wrongful convictions involve a confession.

Voluntary false confession: suspect confesses falsely without coercion.

Coerced-compliant false confession: confession made under duress.

Most common.

This was the case with the Central Park 5.

Coerced-internalized false confession: confession is false, but suspect comes to

believe it is true.

Mysterious area because it is so rare.

Voluntary False Confession

Desire for notoriety.

"looking for fame"

This is why we don't reveal details of crimes publicly that only the

individual who committed the crime would know.

Deficient reality testing; mental illness.

Desire to atone for other sins or offenses.

A person might feel that the need to be punished for something else

they've done.

Coerced-Compliant False Confession

End interrogation

E.g., "If you confess, we'll let you go home."

Earn promised rewards

E.g., Might promise them leniency in court if they confess, even though

they can't promise that.

Avoid threatened punishments

E.g., "If you sign a confession, we will not seek the death penalty."

The Reid Model is likely to lead to such confessions.

Reid Associates argue that it's not the method leading to false

confessions, but the inappropriate use of it.

But that is not true.

Coerced-Internalized False Confession

History of substance abuse

Usually have an inability to distinguish between suggestion and personal

experience.

Often have anxiety or guilt over something.

Russano et al (2005)

Participant plus confederate.

Solve problems independently or collaboratively.

Two conditions:

Innocent: nothing happens, followed instructions perfectly

Guilty: induced by confederate to assist on independent problem.

Answer similarity 'discovered'; (blind) researcher interrogates participants.

Conditions:

No tactic

Explicit leniency

Minimization

Both

Results: (see slides)

Lack ecological validity, but still indicates that we can induce false confessions.

Kassin et al (2005)

Inmates provide true, or concocted confessions to real crimes.

Two groups assess truthfulness of audio only or video + audio confessions.

Intro psych students

Experienced police investigators (11 years experience, 60% with special

training in interrogation and the detection of deception)

Overall accuracy = 54% (same as chance)

Hit rate for truth = 64%

False alarm rate for truth = 56%

More accurate when audio only.

Students were actually more accurate.

We're less accurate when looking at faces - something misleading about it.

Police more confident, but it didn't really matter.

Shaw and Porter (2015)

Participants asked about one real, one false, childhood event.

Two conditions:

Criminal condition: Ss told they had committed crime (assualt, assault

with a weapon, theft)

Emotional condition: Ss told they had emotional experience (they were

injured; attacked by a dog; got into trouble with parents for losing money)

After initial denial, asked to reinstate context, imagine event everyday until

recall.

After 3 weekly interviews, 70% of participants had created detailed false

memories of committing he crime.

False memories same as real memories in degree of complexity and detail.

Confidence in both was about the same.

Interviewing & Interrogation

Sunday, January 21, 2018

10:45 PM

Unlock document

This preview shows pages 1-3 of the document.
Unlock all 17 pages and 3 million more documents.

Already have an account? Log in

In the media …

You almost never see interview depictions that are both accurate and

appropriate.

Unless in a British crime drama.

Interview vs Interrogation According to Reid

Reid technique is widely used in the United States.

Interview: a non-accusatory interaction between investigator and person of

interest with the goal of allowing investigators to gather information pertaining

to a crime.

Non-accusatory; no assumptions are made about the person's

involvement.

○

Purpose is gathering information

○

May be conducted early in an investigation

○

May be conducted in a variety of environments

○

Free-flowing and relatively unstructured

○

Interviewer takes written notes; slow pace

○

Interrogation: accusatory discussion with an individual who is believed to have

guilty information with the goal of getting the person to confess (learn the

truth).

Accusatory

○

Purpose is to learn the truth

○

Conducted only when the investigator is certain of suspect's guilt.

Very difficult in practice.

○

Controlled environment

Careful controls to maximize likelihood of confession.

○

Involves active persuasion

Person is pressed to confess to the crime using various techniques

(e.g., "good cop, bad cop")

○

Notes taken only when the suspect has told the truth.

No note taking throughout the interrogation process.

○

Why No Good Interviews on TV?

Police are not trained in appropriate interview techniques.

Appropriate interview techniques are seldom used in practice.

Appropriate interview = boring TV

Aggressive interrogations are more entertaining.

○

Good Interview Protocols

Establish rapport with the interviewee.

Interviewee understands the "rule" of the interview.

Use open-ended questioning.

No interviewer bias.

Aims of Rapport-Building

Interviewee does most of the talking

Much like a therapist-patient relationship.

Need to be calm/relaxed.

Interviewer conveys non-judgmental, non-coercive understanding and

acceptance.

Establishes a relationship and allows the interviewee to open-up.

Interviewer creates relaxed, informal feeling.

Instructions to Interviewee

Report everything

Never assume the interviewer knows something.

The interviewee is the expert.

Do not guess or fabricate.

No "I think"

Only tell us what really happened/what you witnessed.

Ask if question is unclear.

Very important in multi-cultural, multi-lingual societies.

Correct interviewer's errors.

Use comfortable language.

Repeated questions do not = errors.

Questions are repeated to help the interviewer gain a full picture.