A well-evidenced assertion,
this:
Quote:
... confession typically trumps physical evidence ....
Drizin & Leo, The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World (2004)(114 pp., examining 125 proven false confession cases):
Quote:
This Article proceeds as follows:
Part I discusses, from a historical perspective, the study of wrongful convictions and the prominent role that false confessions have played in such studies. Part I also discusses the development of DNA testing and its role in renewing interest in the study of wrongful convictions.
Part II highlights the connection between police interrogation methods and false confessions, focusing principally on the social psychology of false confessions and research on the causes and consequences of false confessions.
Part III discusses the methodology used to compile and analyze the false confessions that make up this Article’s cohort, defines critical terms, and discusses the limitations of the data.
Part IV sets forth the quantitative findings gleaned from the cohort.
Part V takes a more qualitative approach to the data set, highlighting some of the common themes and trends that emerge from the cohort cases and describing illustrative cases in some detail.
Finally, Part VI concludes this Article with several policy recommendations suggested by the aforementioned findings, and highlights some recent positive developments which suggest that reforms designed to reduce the frequency of false confessions may stand a better chance of being implemented now than ever before.
Which is why no good lawyer will allow a client to be interviewed directly by police, whether that client is an accused, a focus person, a person of interest or a "mere" witness. Recall that Martha Stewart started off a potential witness in an investigation focused on someone else.
Regards
Mike
HIG Research Symposium, 11 March 2014: Washington, DC
Intelligence Interviewing: From Science to Practice
Quote:
The 2014 HIG Research Symposium will be held at the National Academies of Sciences Building located at 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C.
Please register for the conference by February 28, 2014
Our 2014 symposium will highlight new research findings aimed at supporting experts working in the Intelligence community, and will enable policy-makers and Intelligence professionals to network with our team of world-leading social scientists.
The symposium – which is being coordinated by the
Center for Law & Human Behavior at the University of Texas at El Paso – will provide important opportunities to discuss the challenges currently faced by intelligence interviewers and the ways in which ground-breaking research can impact the effectiveness of interview and interrogation methods.
I'll be in attendance and in town for a couple of days - look forward to seeing anyone else who will be in the area.
The Dark Science of Interrogation
Interrogation,, whether of suspects or witnesses, is a fascinating subject and this article is a good summary of where research is today:http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/20...interrogation/
Cut & paste didn't work, so have a peek!
I was somewhat puzzled that the Cognitive Method was only just being adopted by some LE agencies, it has been around here for at least thirty years.
There is a main thread for the subject.
Brussels Attacks Were A Terrorist Interrogation Failure
Brussels Attacks Were A Terrorist Interrogation Failure
Entry Excerpt:
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
Notes on Tactical Use of Qualitative Interviewing
Notes on Tactical Use of Qualitative Interviewing
Entry Excerpt:
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
The scientists persuading terrorists to spill their secrets
A 'Long Read' article in The Guardian, rated by Professor John Horgan as 'a must read' and sub-titled:
Quote:
Expert interrogators know torture doesn’t work – but until now, nobody could prove it. By analysing hundreds of top-secret interviews with terror suspects, two British scientists have revolutionised the art of extracting the truth.
A succinct explanation:
Quote:
The Alisons, husband and wife, have done something no scholars of interrogation have been able to do before. Working in close cooperation with the police, who allowed them access to more than 1,000 hours of tapes, they have observed and analysed hundreds of real-world interviews with terrorists suspected of serious crimes. No researcher in the world has ever laid hands on such a haul of data before. Based on this research, they have constructed the world’s first empirically grounded and comprehensive model of interrogation tactics.
Link:https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...their-secrets?
There are two related threads:One stop interrogation & interviewing resource (which is open, with 98 posts and 87k views) and an older, closed thread (with 162 posts and 168k views):The US & Interrogation (catch all)
Earlier this week 'The Guardian' has a longer, grim article 'Inside the CIA's black site torture site', which was in Afghanistan. It is based on:
Quote:
274 documents the CIA and Pentagon were forced to declassify and release during pre-trial discovery. These documents, many of them scheduled to be entered as exhibits at trial, provide the fullest picture yet of what the three men suffered in that secret CIA dungeon – and of how fatefully their lives intersected with the rise and fall of James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the men who designed the torture regime.
Link:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-interrogation
A classic 'informed rapport building' criminal interview in Canada
Via a pointer in an academic journal the link is to a 2hr 39m video recorded interview in 2010 conducted by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) of a Canadian Air Force Colonel Russell Williams, a suspected serial killer and rapist. The video intro starts with:
Quote:
Here is a masterful deconstruction: A confident and cocky military man strode into the interview room and a broken and degenerate killer and sexual sadist shuffled out, after being prompted to confess his shocking crimes, as I wrote about it when I covered the case in 2010.
Link to video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsLbDzkIy3A and background:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russel...ams_(criminal)