Interrogation in criminal investigations

Definition: Questioning of suspects by law-enforcement personnel to determine their possible involvement in criminal activity under investigation.

Significance: The methods and circumstances of law-enforcement interrogation of suspects raise questions about practical effectiveness (what works in eliciting truthful responses), and they are also subject to requirements of ethical and legal propriety, the precise nature, scope, and justification of which are topics of ongoing social debate.

Criminal investigation involves the interviewing of witnesses and victims as well as more focused interrogation of (potential or actual) suspects. The verb “interrogate” suggests forceful questioning that has an adversarial (if not accusatory) character, and this raises issues of both effectiveness (What methods are likely to be effective?) and ethics (What methods are acceptable?).

Over time, older “third degree” methods of interrogation have given way to social pressures to sustain the integrity of individuals, even suspects, who may, after all, be innocent. The US Supreme Court’s 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona—reinforcing the importance of the right to remain silent, the right not to be questioned except in the presence of legal counsel, and the right to be informed about these rights—is the best known of many decisions. The Court, however, has also declined to rule all police use of deception out of bounds (for example, in the case of Frazier v. Cupp, 1969).

Given legal limitations on police questioning—and in the absence of any really compelling purely physical technique (lie detector, “truth” serum, brain scans)—it has proved necessary for law enforcement to develop alternative approaches to interrogation, although some traditional techniques (such as “good cop/bad cop”) remain popular.

The Reid Technique

One of the most widely influential models for questioning suspects is the Reid Technique, which was developed by John E. Reid and Associates, an organization that provides training in the technique. The Reid Technique involves an elaborate “nine steps” of interrogation. The heart of the technique consists in unwavering confidence in the suspect’s guilt and the creative elaboration of alternative explanations (known as “theme development”) that sympathetically provide the suspect with an opportunity to shift the blame for the criminal occurrence to other people or to circumstances. On one hand, the suspect’s denial of involvement is limited, discouraged, or dismissed (on the principle that truly innocent suspects will not move past denial, no matter what, and that guilty suspects will find it more difficult to confess if they have frequently denied responsibility). On the other hand, the suspect is presented with a “choice” in which either option is an admission of guilt, but one appears more morally acceptable than the other. (“Did this just happen, or was it premeditated?” “Is this the first time this has happened, or have you done this sort of thing frequently before?”)

The Reid Technique originally grew out of work with the polygraph, but it has developed into a more general kind of behavioral assessment. Its proponents see it as carefully constructed not to be coercive in its elicitation of confessions, but rather to exploit the natural human psychology of self-justification. Critics view such techniques as insensitive to the complex situation faced by even innocent accused persons.

False Confessions

Modern forensic science recognizes the need to guard against false confessions, which have been proposed by social scientists as a leading cause of wrongful conviction. Richard A. Leo and his colleagues, for example, suggested in 2006 that of more than 170 established, DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid)-evidence-supported exonerations of wrongfully convicted persons, between one-fifth and one-fourth of the initial convictions had “resulted in whole or in part from police-induced false confessions.”

Joseph P. Buckley, president of John E. Reid and Associates, has argued that the cases discussed by Leo and others “do not provide any scientific basis for the claim that police interrogation techniques that conform to the guidelines established by the courts result in false confessions.” However, he does concede that they may have demonstrated that “illegal interrogation procedures can cause innocent people to confess.” Leo and his colleagues believe that “properly trained” law-enforcement personnel understand the need for objective verification of confessions but recognize that many injustices may result from inadequate training or improper motivation of interrogators or from poor quality control. They argue that videotape recording of the entire process of interrogation would enable courts to detect the subtle influence of cognitive and emotional bias on the ability of suspects to make reasonable (and uncoerced) choices.

Harsh Interrogation

Especially since the destruction of the World Trade Center as the result of terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and the emergence of the “war on terrorism,” questions about torture, once largely regarded as settled by the Geneva Convention and other international agreements, have reappeared in discussions about “harsh” or “enhanced” interrogation techniques. The discussion has not always distinguished which government agency (the Central Intelligence Agency, military intelligence, police) is treating which kind of suspect (terrorist, prisoner of war, enemy combatant).

With improbable but dire (“ticking bomb”) examples, apologists have defended extreme measures in interrogation as “necessary.” Critics have claimed that such measures produce unreliable information as well as violate fundamental moral principles. The long-term relevance of such measures to ordinary forensic practice (especially at the international level) remains to be seen.

PEACE Model

The PEACE (Preparation and Planning, Engage and Explain, Account, Closure, and Evaluate) interrogation model is mostly used in England; however, it is gaining acceptance in the United States which means that it will require training and funding. Unlike other methods of interrogation, this model does not intend to intimidate the suspect with threats and aggressive actions. On the contrary, the PEACE model is characterized by its journalistic approach where the key ingredient is patience throughout the interview process. This technique tries to avoid wrongful convictions by creating a better atmosphere that allows the suspect to carefully explain the events surrounding the crime. If the suspect is in fact guilty, it will eventually become harder for this individual to maintain the fabrication as the interview period extends.

Bibliography

Dershowitz, Alan M. Is There a Right to Remain Silent? Coercive Interrogation and the Fifth Amendment After 9/11. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Well-known Harvard Law School constitutional expert, a leading voice in the reassessment of torture, discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s treatment of preventive interrogation techniques.

Guiora, Amos N. Constitutional Limits on Coercive Interrogation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Law professor with a background in the Israel Defense Forces discusses the tensions between national security and civil rights and argues for a “hybrid” category of detainees distinct from both prisoners of war and traditional criminals.

Inbau, Fred E., John E. Reid, Joseph P. Buckley, and Brian C. Jayne. Criminal Interrogation and Confessions. 4th ed. Boston: Jones & Bartlett, 2004. Standard work, sometimes referred to as the bible of interrogation, explains the widely utilized Reid Technique.

Jackman, Tom. "Homicide Detective's Book Describes 'How the Police Generates False Confessions." The Washington Post, 20 Oct. 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/10/20/homicide-detectives-book-describes-how-the-police-generate-false-confessions/?utm‗term=.69bbad3bf0a7. Accessed 19 Dec. 2016.

Leo, Richard A. Police Interrogation and American Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008. A longtime critic of the role of interrogation in the production of false confessions offers a treatise on what he thinks is wrong with American police and judicial practices.

McCoy, Alfred W. A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. New York: Henry Holt, 2006. Presents a critical history of interrogation techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

White, Welsh S. Miranda’s Waning Protections: Police Interrogation Practices After Dickerson. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001. Discusses the movement away from the protections of the Miranda case.