Earlier on, we talked about interviews and how to gain accurate and complete information
from witnesses. However, when an investigator believes someone is guilty, they may switch
from interviewing the suspect, to interrogating him or her.
Unfortunately, however, these prejudgements of guilt are not always accurate
The goal of interrogation is to gain a confession, and as we saw in the previous video, the forcefulness
of the interrogation can affect the reliability of that confession.
Previously, interrogation techniques involved direct physical violence, such as beatings,
burning the skin, and electric shocks.
As these techniques became less acceptable, both to the community, and in the eyes of
the law, more covert methods have been employed.
These might involve techniques like near drownings, holding a suspect over a great height, hitting
a suspect through telephone books, pressing a suspect against a dead body, or deprivation,
isolation and intimidation.
Many of these so-called 'enhanced' interrogation techniques have been alleged to have been
used at various military detention camps in recent years.
More typically, though, in police settings in countries where accusatorial methods are
seen as acceptable, more direct psychological means of coercion have been employed. And
this type of approach is best exemplified by the Inbau, Reid & Buckley’s (1986) nine-step
approach to interrogation.
This interrogation occurs after an initial Behavioural Analysis Interview which is carried
out to determine whether the personal of interest is a suspect and therefore should be formally
interrogated.
This determination of guilt in this initial interview occurs through an interpretation
of non verbal behavioural cues and linguistic and paralinguistic styles that are believed
to indicate deception. And we will return to the reliability of nonverbal cues to deception
in a later video.
After the Behavioural Analysis Interview comes the interrogation. And the aim of this is
to establish control over the suspect and to use psychological manipulation to achieve
a confession. It is characterised by a closed-ended, confirmatory questioning approach.
The primary goal is that of confession and the method typically yields anxiety based
cues to deception.
Inbau and Reid specified nine steps in a successful interrogation and the process should begin
with the suspect experiencing custody and isolation - that is being kept in a small
room and left to experience the anxiety, insecurity and uncertainty associated with police interrogation.
The first formal step is confrontation, where the goal is to present evidence of the suspect's
involvement in the crime. This evidence might be real or it might be fictional. The accusation
of guilt might be repeated, and if there is no denial then the suspect is actually considered
to be deceptive.
Now in the second step of the nine steps is psychological theme development, and how this
proceeds depends on the emotionality of the suspect at this stage. For an emotional suspect,
the interrogator would use minimisation, that is they would provide a moral or face saving
excuse for the crime.
For example, the interrogator of a suspect in a case of rape might say “No woman should
be on the street alone looking like that, that’s too much of a temptation for any
man".
Note that throughout this, the assumption is always that the suspect who listens attentively
to these excuses is guilty.
For the suspect who is unemotional at this stage, the aim at this point is a little bit
different. As an interrogator, what you want to get here is an admission of lying about
some aspect of the crime. Then you can use the fact that the suspect has lied once to
suggest that they are lying about their innocence.
By emphasising the seriousness of the offence and exaggerating the charges, a maximisation
approach might be used in an attempt to scare or intimidate the suspect into confessing.
The third step, interrupting all statements of denial, aims to end suspect's repetition
of their denial of guilt. And this should actually result in a change of tactics by a guilty
suspect.
They may provide additional reasons why they couldn't have committed the crime. For example
by claiming that they didn't have a gun so they couldn't have done it. It is assumed
that innocent suspects, on the other hand, will not allow their denials to be cut off.
The fourth step is overcoming objections to the charges. Guilty suspects will raise objections,
and the aim of the interrogator is to overcome these by showing understanding but returning
to theme development.
Once the suspect sees that their objections are ineffective, they should become uncertain
and withdraw. Innocent suspects should simply continue with their denials.
Step five is to retain the suspect's attention. Once the suspect has withdrawn, the interrogator
should try and reduce the physical distance between themselves and the suspect.
And the sixth step actually involves urging the suspect to tell the truth by showing sympathy and
understanding to them. The interrogator should attempt to focus the suspect's mind on possible reasons
for committing the offence and try to create a remorseful mood.
The seventh step is about creating an opportunity to confess by providing an explanation or
excuse for the crime. The interrogator might pose an either or question such as: "Was it
your own idea, or did someone talk you into it?"
The final two steps encourage the suspect to recount the details of the crime as part
of a confession and then convert that confession into a written statement. Inbau and colleagues
have claimed on the basis of their research that this technique was effective.
So why might such an approach work?
Well, the effectiveness of the method can be explained by theories of attitude change.
The positivity or negativity of an attitude towards confessing is related to the relative
perceptions of positive and negative aspects of confessing.
The aim of an interrogation using this approach is to get the suspect to think more positively
about confessing and to eliminate any negative consequences of admitting guilt.
The way this is done is by giving the suspect the impression that denial will also lead
to conviction and also to imply that more lenient consequences will follow if the suspect
actually confesses.
So a suspect's willingness to confess increases as their attitude to confessing becomes more
positive. The problem is, that this works for both guilty and innocent suspects alike.
Now, one of the main problems with this approach is with the assumptions about how liars and
truth tellers will behave in the context of their initial interview and subsequent interrogation.
In fact, research suggests that liars, due to their concerns about the impression they
are creating, behave in precisely the opposite way to that expected in this approach.
It is liars who tend to be more helpful and less nervous.
Crucially, this interrogation approach relies on assumed non-verbal behavioural
indicators of deception. When these assumed indicators have been evaluated using the scientific
approach they have been found to be unreliable. Further, people are unskilled in accurately
reading non-verbal cues, and we will return to this point in the next video.
And so, this had lead some to conclude that the fundamental assumptions underlying this
approach are flawed. Interesting, when police officers endorse the cues to deception
described in the nine step approach, they show lower levels of lie detection accuracy.
Even more problematically, when people are trained to use aspects of
the nine step approach directly related to deception detection, these people become less
accurate but more confident.
While the nine step approach assumes that the suspect is guilty and applies pressure
to extract a confession, there is an alternative approach. In a number of jurisdictions this
came about through legal changes following high profile false confessions that allowed
judges more discretion in allowing (or not allowing) confession testimony that had been
obtained through such coercive techniques that I've just spoken about.
In this method of interviewing, investigators seek to establish rapport with the interviewee
and to use direct positive confrontation of the suspect to elicit confessions or other
self incriminating statements. To do this, open-ended, exploratory questioning approaches
are used.
The fundamental goal of this type of approach is to gather information and this approach
yields cognitive cues to deception. Trickery or deception should not be used.
So in this technique rapport is developed between the interviewer and interviewee. And
this facilitates a more relaxed atmosphere in which people should be more willing to
talk. The interviewer will then explain the allegation and the seriousness of the offence
and emphasise the importance of honesty and truth to the suspect.
The suspect will then be asked to provide their version of the events. During this,
the interviewer should not interrupt and should, instead, actively listen.
Once a full account has been given by the suspect, the questioning can actually begin. For example, the interviewer may
provide the suspect with any inconsistencies or contradictions that they are aware of.
And this may involve information that at this point the interviewer knows but has yet to
be revealed to the suspect.
However this information must reflect information that is known to the police because police are not
allowed to deceive the suspect.
So you can see at this stage that this 'information gathering' type of approach looks quite similar
to aspects of an eyewitness interview technique we’ve already covered - that is the cognitive
interview.
However, one obvious problem with this approach is that it does require the cooperation of the
suspect to be effective. If your suspect doesn't want to talk then there there is nothing you can
legally do to make them using this technique.
But we can perhaps assume that most people would want to tell 'their side of a story'
particularly if it is alleged that they may have been involved in a crime.
So do police engage in information gathering when interviewing suspects? Well investigative
interviewing with its more information-seeking focus, has been adopted in a number of countries
including the United Kingdom, Norway, New Zealand and Australia.
Well what is the most effective of dealing with a suspect, and how does this relate to
the false confession rate?
In 2014, Meissner and colleagues published a meta analysis,that is a study that had the
aim of systematically and comprehensively reviewing published and non-published experimental
and observational studies on the effectiveness of these different types of techniques.
So they focused on whether an interrogation, information gathering or a combination approach
- which they called direct questioning - was taken to suspects and whether true or false
confessions were given. They also differentiated studies on the basis of whether they were
conducted in a field setting or whether they were lab based experimental studies.
Now in their analyses, in the field studies, the interrogation and information gathering
approaches were positively associated with a large and significant increase in confession
rates. The use of direct questioning - a mixture of the two approaches if you like - was not
significantly associated with an increase in confession rates.
Now in terms of false confessions, which could only be assessed in those lab based studies, they
considered the effects of the different interview or interrogation techniques on the outcomes
of true or false confessions.
When the interrogation method was directly contrasted with the information seeking approach,
the information seeking approach came out on top.
So this scientific evidence suggests that an information gathering approach is a better
way to interview suspects.
Now earlier in this video, we talked about the possible role of nonverbal cues in helping
us to decide whether the witness is being truthful about their innocence and how decisions
into the interview process are based on this.
So in the next video, we're going to spend some more time considering the research on nonverbal
behaviour and how it is linked to being deceptive.