Lecture 11 - Investigstive Interviewing & Interrogation

Question 1

What is the difference between an interrogation and interview?

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Name two cases and the reasons for why they were thrown out or had their appeal accepted

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

What were the rules courts were run by before the legal framework came into play?

Answer 3

Judges rules 1912
Loose set of 5 principles
Vague

Question 4

What’s the knock on effect when you do an interview badly and then take it to court?

Answer 4

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

Question 5

Up to 1984 what was the main aim of an interview?

Why?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Who set up a group and what was the group called that aimed to fix the system?

Answer 6

The home office set up the steering group to research into interviewing techniques

Question 7

What did the steering group come up with ?

Answer 7

An interview model that offered an effective and ethical alternative to the interrogation. PEACE 1984.

Question 8

Is interviewing oppressive?

Answer 8

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

Question 9

What is the case of Michael Crowe? What is it an example of ?

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Who was the person who developed the 4 principles behind the Reid technique?

Answer 10

Inbau et al (2013)

Question 11

What are these 4 principles?

Answer 11

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

Question 12

What are the 4 false beliefs behind inbau’s theory for the Reid technique?

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Which two papers looked into the idea that only the guilty confess?

Answer 13

Kassin (2005)

Kebbell (2006)

Question 14

Is there ever a genuine reason to use interrogation?

Answer 14

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?

Question 15

What three points describe the kind of information you want to receive from interviews?

Answer 15

Information must be
Accurate
Relevant
Complete

Question 16

In England there are four points that define and help the interviewer develop their abilities, what are they?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

What’s the real problem with point 4) of things to help training ?

Answer 17

It’s hard to find supervisors who are primed in interview techniques because most higher ups aren’t involved in interviewing

Question 18

Which rank of the police normally conduct the interviews?

Answer 18

Detective constable rank

Question 19

Why do we interview ?

Answer 19

Get more information
Determine guilt
Test for corroboration with a witness
Eliminate a suspect if they have an alibi

Question 20

Who conducted research looking into what makes a quality interview?
What did he find? (7)

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

Who can use the PEACE model on?

Answer 21

Witnesses, victims and suspects

Question 22

What was one of the reasons for the PEACE model?

Answer 22

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

Question 23

PEACE aimed to move from aggressive persuasion and confession seeking to what three things?

Answer 23

Truth searching
Information gathering
Impartiality

Question 24

Which other countries use the PEACE model?

Answer 24

Australia
New Zealand
Canada
Europe

Question 25

What does PEACE actually stand for ?

Answer 25

Planning and preparation
Engage and explain
Account, clarify and challenge
Closure 
Evaluation

Question 26

What does engage and explain really entail?

Answer 26

It’s the basic legal introductions and introductions of the staff tpresent as well informing the patients of their rights

Question 27

What do we mean by evaluation?

Answer 27

Account for the new information you’ve learnt, assess your strategy and decide where to go next

Question 28

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 ?

Answer 28

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,

Question 29

What are the 7 principles of investigative interviewing using the acronym - Fat perq

Answer 29

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

Question 30

What is the importance of rapport? (7)

Page com

Answer 30

Interviewees anxiety 
Important to interact meaningfully - don't just ask predetermined questions 
Avoid generic questions 
Connect with them 
Always use open questions 
Use empathy

Question 31

Who evaluated the effectiveness of PEACE?

Answer 31

McGurk, Carr & McGurk (1993)

Clarke & Milne (2001)

Question 32

What did the McGurk (1993) find in the evaluation?

Answer 32

Post training, there was improvement in:
Questioning techniques
Open mindedness
Structure and listening

Question 33

What did Clarke and Milne (2001) find?

Answer 33

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.

Question 34

What are the 6 personal and professional processes going on when interviewing an offender?
(Oxburgh 2005)

Answer 34

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

Question 35

What negative loop can form and between which of the 6 areas? How can you overcome these?

Answer 35

Dynamic factors, interview and negative outcomes. Overcome it using evaluation to know exactly where you are going wrong.

Question 36

What is the longest time length you can keep someone on a warrant that isn’t terroirism?

Answer 36

96 hours

Question 37

Suspects have to make decisions when in an interview, who looked at what the primary choices are?

Answer 37

Hilgendorf & Irving (1981)

Question 38

What did they suggest the primary decisions were? (5)

Answer 38

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

Question 39

What is a confession?

Answer 39

Where a person Confesses to committing or being involved in the commission of a criminal offence

Question 40

What is a TIC?

Answer 40

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.

Question 41

What is the problem with TIC?

Answer 41

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.

Question 42

What are the three types of confession?

Who defined them?

Answer 42

Voluntary confession
Coerced compliant confession
Coerced internalised confession

Kassin & wrightsman (1985)

Question 43

What is coerced compliant confession?

Answer 43

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

Question 44

Who is especially likely to coerced compliantly confess?

Answer 44

Vulnerable people , they have an inherent trust for authority figures

Question 45

What did gudjonsson (2003) define coerced internalised confession as ?

Answer 45

The person comes to accept the interrogators version as the true one

Question 46

What are some of the advantages of confessing ?

Answer 46

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

Question 47

Vennard (1984) looked into the three most common reasons people give false confessions. What are they?

Answer 47

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

Question 48

What do these three reasons suggest compliance is?

Answer 48

Compliance is a coping strategy to avoid aversive and stressful situations in interrogation or custody

Question 49

What are two broad categories of coping strategies?

Answer 49

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.

Question 50

According to the Reid technique what would you use on:

1) resistant suspect
2) coerced suspect

Answer 50

1) maximisation of the evidence and lying

2) minimisation and normalisation of the crime

Question 51

When does the suspect appraise which coping strategy to use?

Answer 51

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

Question 52

Which type of confession is psychologically understandable and why?

Answer 52

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

Question 53

What is an explanation for coerced internalised confessions?

Answer 53

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

Question 54

Do we have to have a confession?

Answer 54

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

Question 55

Can we tell is someone provides a false confession?

Answer 55

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.

Question 56

What is one of the reasons it took so long to the Birmingham 6 to be repudiated?

Answer 56

The system had already gone so far and would have been big public scandal and embarrassment if they went back on it