What Is Police Interrogation?

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Interrogation is the questioning of a suspect during an investigation or while he or she is in police custody. The interrogation process should encourage the suspect to reveal information about a crime, without crossing the line into torture or eliciting a false confession.

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Physicians may monitor interrogations, but they should not participate directly in them. If they observe coercive interrogation practices, they are obligated to report them to the appropriate authorities.

The Basics

Police officers and criminal detectives acquire interrogation expertise through a combination of implicit learning processes and formal learning from their mentors. They also gain practical work experience through their regular assignments and the accumulation of their personal interrogation experiences. Nonetheless, it is hard to define the exact characteristics of police interrogation expertise as there are many different views on this matter.

Nevertheless, most scholars agree that there are some natural competencies that can improve interrogation efficiency. These include the personality traits and intelligence of the interrogator as well as the cognitive biases and heuristic judgments that are inherent to human information processing.

Other features that contribute to interrogation effectiveness are the methods used by interrogators and the underlying aims of the interrogation itself. There are different models of interrogation, ranging from collaborative interrogation strategies to confrontational ones aimed at garnering confessions. For example, the information-gathering model of interrogation uses techniques similar to those used for crime witness elicitation to encourage the suspect to present his version of events. The interrogator then challenges inconsistencies in the suspect’s story, just as he would with a witness.

The Reid Technique

Whether you watched the Netflix series Making a Murderer or not, you’ve probably heard of the Reid technique. This is an interrogation technique that aims to get suspects to admit guilt by telling them that the results of the investigation clearly point to their involvement. The investigator should also use certain physical gestures and a reassuring demeanor to ensure the suspect feels understood.

The Reid Technique is based on the assumption that people can distinguish between truth and lies by looking at nonverbal cues, but this has been criticized heavily. A growing number of academics have raised concerns that 흥신소 the Reid techniques may lead to false confessions, and experiments support the claim that it is difficult to determine if someone is lying by looking at their body language.

While the Reid technique is still widely used, many professionals and law enforcement officials are exploring new options for interviewing suspected criminals, including non-accusatory models that avoid the harmful effects of accusatory methods. The Reid company offers some guidelines, such as repeating Miranda warnings and avoiding leading questions.

Maximization

Maximization refers to the decision-making style in which individuals seek out the best possible option through an exhaustive search through alternatives. This is in contrast to satisficing, which is the decision-making style that involves evaluation of options until one is “good enough.” Maximization is often linked with negative outcomes such as low job satisfaction, lower work performance and a greater risk of depression.

A suspect in a criminal investigation who is waiting in custody for interrogation is often worried about the amount of evidence the police have collected against him or her. This worry can lead to hopelessness, which may in turn lead to a false confession.

An objective investigator should be aware of these concerns and use a non-aggressive approach during the interview. The environment of the interrogation room should be neutral and comfortable. In addition, the investigator should avoid any action that could be construed as oppressive, such as standing over the suspect or making physical contact with him or her. This will help to keep the suspect from losing his or her sense of hopelessness and encourage him or her to be more honest during the questioning.

Minimization

Often a cognitive distortion, minimization is a process by which someone downplays an event or behavior. It can be a conscious act, such as a bully who brushes off his rude remarks to avoid punishment or an employee who downplays a mistake by saying, “I was just kidding.” Minimization is also common in unwitting situations, such as when a parent thinks that her child’s poor grades are the result of a lazy study ethic.

For macromolecular optimization calculations, it is important to minimize to a point that relaxes the most-strained parts of the system without introducing artifacts. Typically, for protein systems, it is sufficient to stop when the average derivatives are between 0.02 and 0.5 kcal mol-1 A-1.

Another application of minimization is in the assignment of patients to treatment and control groups in clinical trials. Rather than relying on randomization, which has the disadvantage of not maintaining tight control over one variable, minimization allows for the assignment of patients while eliminating most of the variance in patient characteristics and therefore reducing the likelihood of severe imbalance by a factor of four to five.

Fear Mitigation

It is difficult to justify a technique that makes suspects vulnerable to false confessions, which in turn may lead to innocent people being incarcerated. Such techniques are also upsetting, confusing, and harrowing to innocent suspects, while posing a moral risk for interrogators.

It seems reasonable to assume that most laypeople want police to investigate crimes and should not object in principle if officers use effective, reliable, and rights-respecting techniques when they implicate suspects. However, people also have a right to privacy and a responsibility to support institutions that deliver security and justice.

This translates into a duty for investigators to not reveal details of their work to suspects without compelling reason to do so. For example, it is unreasonable to demand that an investigator give a suspect full insight into the suspect’s network and operations, which may inflate the suspect’s stress levels and increase the likelihood of a false confession. A better approach is to provide the suspect with a narrative of the evidence that led to his arrest and let him decide whether he has an alternate explanation for it.