PSYC 3020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Psychopathology, Robert Ressler, Eyewitness Identification

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 3020
• Professor: Dan Yarmey

Document Summary

In gathering evidence and interrogating suspects police investigators use a number of skills that are based on psychological procedures and theory. Evidence is often collected through interrogation techniques, which have the purpose of obtaining a confession and acquiring information. We will look at the reid model of interrogation and its potential problems, and discuss alternatives to the reid model, false confessions, and criminal profiling in this unit. The purpose of a police interrogation is to gather information about a crime and, if possible, obtain a confession (kassin, 1997). In canada, additional evidence is required to corroborate a confession before a defendant can be convicted. Once a person is categorized as a suspect, it is assumed that he or she is probably guilty and will be uncooperative and relatively silent. Inbau, reid, buckley, & jayne (2004) advocate that police take a tough approach in breaking a suspect"s resistance to tell the truth.