Lecture 11 - Investigstive Interviewing & Interrogation Flashcards
What is the difference between an interrogation and interview?
Interrogations are when you walk in with a fixed frame of reference and are aiming for a guilty confession
Interviews have a neutral viewpoint and aim to discover more truthful information
Name two cases and the reasons for why they were thrown out or had their appeal accepted
R v Heron
Officers misrepresented the evidence, with 12 tapes in total of interviews they only submitted 4 of them. He did technically confess but only after a lot of questioning which wasn’t shown.
Cardiff three
Questions were asked in an aggressive and loud way which may be considered coercive. Intimidation so the case confession was considered inadmissible and the extra police was wasn’t looked for.
What were the rules courts were run by before the legal framework came into play?
Judges rules 1912
Loose set of 5 principles
Vague
What’s the knock on effect when you do an interview badly and then take it to court?
The case is sometimes thrown out of court as a miscarriage of justice and then the media has a field day and no one trusts the police
Up to 1984 what was the main aim of an interview?
Why?
To gain a confession
Confessions held a lot of weight in a court
Meant you didn’t really have to look any further, saved money and time
Who set up a group and what was the group called that aimed to fix the system?
The home office set up the steering group to research into interviewing techniques
What did the steering group come up with ?
An interview model that offered an effective and ethical alternative to the interrogation. PEACE 1984.
Is interviewing oppressive?
It’s subjective and transient and within the officers control
You have to consider things like the number of people in the room, the type of room, personality type, vulnerabilities etc.
So as long as you account and are aware interviews don’t have to be oppressive
What is the case of Michael Crowe? What is it an example of ?
14 year old charged with the murder of his sister after being bullied after 10 hours of interviewing made a false confession.
Example of a false confession After the use of the Reid technique
Who was the person who developed the 4 principles behind the Reid technique?
Inbau et al (2013)
What are these 4 principles?
Themes of accusation
Bluff and outright lies about evidence
Minimising evidence of the crime for emotional suspects
Maximising the evidence of the crime for unemotional suspects.
From these 4 principles came a 9 step process to getting a confession
What are the 4 false beliefs behind inbau’s theory for the Reid technique?
1) interview is the only aspect of the interview
2) confession has to be obtained
3) only the guilty confess
4) police officers are the best / are experts at identifying lies
Which two papers looked into the idea that only the guilty confess?
Kassin (2005)
Kebbell (2006)
Is there ever a genuine reason to use interrogation?
Maybe for prisoners of war
Guantanamo bay
Or when there is a ticking bomb situation
But overall you’r still going to have to double check the information to see if it’s true so what’s the real value in doing that?
What three points describe the kind of information you want to receive from interviews?
Information must be
Accurate
Relevant
Complete
In England there are four points that define and help the interviewer develop their abilities, what are they?
1) to have knowledge of the psychology of interviewing and memory
2) receive training in a thorough range of techniques for different types of interview
3) have the opportunity to practice in a learning environment
4) supervised and given feedback on real life interviews
What’s the real problem with point 4) of things to help training ?
It’s hard to find supervisors who are primed in interview techniques because most higher ups aren’t involved in interviewing
Which rank of the police normally conduct the interviews?
Detective constable rank
Why do we interview ?
Get more information
Determine guilt
Test for corroboration with a witness
Eliminate a suspect if they have an alibi
Who conducted research looking into what makes a quality interview?
What did he find? (7)
Stockdale (1993)
Plan and prepare
Knowledge of legislation
Appropriate interview style, structure and techniques
Effort to fulfill evidential requirements, so no lies like in Reid
Fair and open minded
No inadmissible evidence, no omitting anything
Maintain integrity of the investigation.
Who can use the PEACE model on?
Witnesses, victims and suspects
What was one of the reasons for the PEACE model?
Public perception after miscarriage of justice cases, as well as after the way the media presented the police as they would behave in America. Very negative image so they wanted to change that
PEACE aimed to move from aggressive persuasion and confession seeking to what three things?
Truth searching
Information gathering
Impartiality
Which other countries use the PEACE model?
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
Europe
What does PEACE actually stand for ?
Planning and preparation Engage and explain Account, clarify and challenge Closure Evaluation
What does engage and explain really entail?
It’s the basic legal introductions and introductions of the staff tpresent as well informing the patients of their rights
What do we mean by evaluation?
Account for the new information you’ve learnt, assess your strategy and decide where to go next
In the PEACE model over which points do you loop to achieve the most information and what must you do that makes planning so important ?
Go over the account clarify and challenge section over and over for each part and only then move on. So you should plan exactly what you want to discuss so you don’t keep chopping and changing and therefore make the interviews really long,
What are the 7 principles of investigative interviewing using the acronym - Fat perq
Fair, always act fairly and take into account if someone’s vulnerable
Accurate and reliable information
Test the information you are given against already gathered information
Persistent questioning, you don’t have to accept the first answer
Early admission has a positive effect
Wide range of questions
Ask questions even if right to silence is excercised
What is the importance of rapport? (7)
Page com
Interviewees anxiety Important to interact meaningfully - don't just ask predetermined questions Avoid generic questions Connect with them Always use open questions Use empathy
Who evaluated the effectiveness of PEACE?
McGurk, Carr & McGurk (1993)
Clarke & Milne (2001)
What did the McGurk (1993) find in the evaluation?
Post training, there was improvement in:
Questioning techniques
Open mindedness
Structure and listening
What did Clarke and Milne (2001) find?
It was the widest range of evaluation looking at all the police forces in England and Wales
Found that planning was vital but that 39% did little or no planning at all.
What are the 6 personal and professional processes going on when interviewing an offender?
(Oxburgh 2005)
Static factors: like age, gender, occupation (don’t change)
Stable factors: emotion control, coping style, training ( for officer and suspect)
Dynamic factors: personal trauma, peer support, health
Negative outcomes: non accurate info, retraction, less empathy
Positive outcomes: accurate info, empathy, good interview
What negative loop can form and between which of the 6 areas? How can you overcome these?
Dynamic factors, interview and negative outcomes. Overcome it using evaluation to know exactly where you are going wrong.
What is the longest time length you can keep someone on a warrant that isn’t terroirism?
96 hours
Suspects have to make decisions when in an interview, who looked at what the primary choices are?
Hilgendorf & Irving (1981)
What did they suggest the primary decisions were? (5)
Whether to talk at all Whether to make self incriminating admissions or not To tell the truth or not Whole truth or partial truth How to answer the question
What is a confession?
Where a person Confesses to committing or being involved in the commission of a criminal offence
What is a TIC?
Taken into consideration, you have a burglar and you ask him to tell you if there are any other crimes that he’s done and if he tells you he can have a shorter sentence.
What is the problem with TIC?
A lot of people will admit to crimes they didn’t commit a for the shorter sentence. So the clean up rate looks good but the criminal hasn’t been caught.
What are the three types of confession?
Who defined them?
Voluntary confession
Coerced compliant confession
Coerced internalised confession
Kassin & wrightsman (1985)
What is coerced compliant confession?
An eagerness to please to interrogator
Avoiding further contact with feared authority figures and imagined or real physical harm
Accept the bargain with the interrogator for a reward for compliance
Suspect knows the truth but agrees with the alternative account for the above reasons
Who is especially likely to coerced compliantly confess?
Vulnerable people , they have an inherent trust for authority figures
What did gudjonsson (2003) define coerced internalised confession as ?
The person comes to accept the interrogators version as the true one
What are some of the advantages of confessing ?
Authorities look more favourable you those who cooperate
With a confession proceedings might stop then and there, no more stress
Confessions are seen as the honourable thing to do
Confess over your group to elevate your importance and status in the crime
Stress reliever
Normalising the offence
Vennard (1984) looked into the three most common reasons people give false confessions. What are they?
A promise from the police of early release from custody
Prolonged detention in the cells (don’t know when you’re going to get out)
Actual or threatened violence
What do these three reasons suggest compliance is?
Compliance is a coping strategy to avoid aversive and stressful situations in interrogation or custody
What are two broad categories of coping strategies?
Resistant suspect, will maintain their own version of the truth, rejecting the interrogators attempts to persuade them
Coerced suspect, changes their version of the truth to match with the interrogators view.
According to the Reid technique what would you use on:
1) resistant suspect
2) coerced suspect
1) maximisation of the evidence and lying
2) minimisation and normalisation of the crime
When does the suspect appraise which coping strategy to use?
When they walk in the interrogation room they will unconsciously decide which route to go down. Their choice might be modified during questioning when stress is mounting, they begin to doubt their memory and the negative social feedback
Which type of confession is psychologically understandable and why?
Coerced compliant confession, the suspect just wants to avoid the aversive situation so even though they know it’s not true they say it is to escape
What is an explanation for coerced internalised confessions?
It is believed that self perception, intelligence, memory ability and current psychological state all merge to form suggestibility. This can lead to accepting misleading information
Do we have to have a confession?
Courts are more and more dubious of them And their problems
You can’t just have a confession you have to have corroborating evidence as well
But Kassin(2005) showed that a confession has a very big effect on a jury decision
Can we tell is someone provides a false confession?
Unlikely, there have been a lot of cases of them and often they’re not released until much later on. For example the Birmingham IRA 6.
What is one of the reasons it took so long to the Birmingham 6 to be repudiated?
The system had already gone so far and would have been big public scandal and embarrassment if they went back on it
