One stop interrogation & interviewing resource

[jmm99]

Moderators Note: See Post 2 to explain why this appears!

this suggestion:

from Jedburgh
Wonder how much they paid those "experts"? All they needed to do was ask a few old, experienced HUMINT NCOs. The best advice in the world, for free. Read my posts on interrogation.

Not being one to lightly disregard your advice (), here are the threads I found (using Advanced Search on interrogation and Jedburgh as poster):

A Lesson About Torture, Half Century On

Profusion of Rebel Groups Helps Them Survive

Terrorism in Indonesia

U.S. Army Adds Interrogators

Republican Revolt over interrogation techniques?

It's the Tribes, Stupid

Battlefield Ethics

It's Our Cage, Too - links to three threads on torture and interrogation in this post.

Advisers Fault Harsh Methods in Interrogation http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=9446

Extraordinary Rendition

HUMINT-Centric Ops

Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII

Semantic Search Engine as a model for Intel Analysis tool

Rendition in the Southern Cone: Operation Condor

"Face" among the Arabs

Iran in the News

Stalin World?

Gitmo and the lawyers!

Revising FM 3-24: What needs to change?

Screening for Interrogation

Hamas in Gaza

Iran and Iraq

35M school, Camp Williams UT

Interrogation in Afghanistan

Not to turn this into a Jedburgh Appreciation Page (), but the above threads contain multiple good links and comments by Ted and others.

[davidbfpo]

Interrogation irregularly features on SWC and an in-house, ex-military expert is Jedburgh whose contributions have been assembed by JMM recently. I thought it worthy of putting his posts / threads in one place for future use.

[davidbfpo]

Been awhile since the thread has been updated, but when looking for something else I came across this paper 'National Security Interrogations: Myth and Reality' by Steven Kleinman:http://content.thirdway.org/publicat...v._Reality.pdf

The Third Way labels itself as a 'moderate' "think tank" and appears to be Democratic Party dominated.

[davidbfpo]

Ali Soufan reviews “The Interrogator: An Education,” a new book by CIA veteran and former detainee interrogator Glenn Carle.

It would be a struggle to find a CIA operative who endorses the use of enhanced-interrogation techniques. Carle’s experience and frustrations with the interrogation system bears out the fact that Anyone with actual interrogation experience knows that rapport-building techniques, which use knowledge to outwit detainees and gain cooperation, produce better intelligence than enhanced interrogation.

Link:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

[davidbfpo]

Six questions posed and in the last states - on general national policy, not the art of interrogation:

Frankly, I believe the main reason is that many people in the government have been sincere but deluded in their perceptions and actions in the “War on Terror.” I wrote my book because I was so distressed by so many aspects of the case: our erroneous and dangerous exaggeration of the terrorist threats facing us; what we have done to ourselves, our society, and our laws with our interrogation programs during the “War on Terror;” how our views about acceptable behavior have become coarser; our freedoms compromised unnecessarily; and how we unjustly kept a largely innocent man in prison for years, it seems, so as to bury in a dungeon the dark multiple, egregious errors.

Link:http://harpers.org/archive/2011/07/hbc-90008139

The second article is concerning with redactions made to the bbok at CIA insistence:http://www.harpers.org/archive/2011/07/hbc-90008135

[davidbfpo]

A UK academic, a forensic psychologist, has written a short article, the full title being 'The psychology of interviewing suspects, from Woolwich to Boston'. It brings together a number of themes, with some links, so may help readers:http://theconversation.com/the-psych...o-boston-14827

Given the practice in the UK of many terrorism suspects remaining silent throughout police custody it is a moot point whether better interviewing will help.

[jmm99]

The basic dichotomy is between the Interview (get information) vs the Interrogation (get confession). The former more closely resembles direct witness examination; the latter more resembles cross examination.

Starting with the basics,

Interview Techniques (~30 min.)

1997 Federal Law Enforcement Training Center gov.ntis.ava20440vnb1 VP-023-97 Federal Law Enforcement Training Center - This video depicts an effective law enforcement interview using the five general stages: Introduction, rapport, questioning, summary, and close.

Since the UK author mentions it, let's look at the Reid Technique of interviewing and interrogation (Wiki)

Here's a sampling of Reid's four major points (about an hour total)

Interview & Interrogation Part 1

Interview & Interrogation Part 2

Interview & Interrogation Part 3

Interview & Interrogation Part 4

My opinion is that the Reid methodology (as to verbal cues and body language) includes some witchcraft and alchemy; but that opinion may derive from having been a student of Yale Kamisar, and not of Fred Inbau and John Reid.

Finally ...

Don't Talk to Police (~50 min.)

A law professor explains how talking with police can get you convicted of crimes you're completely innocent of. The professor gives a long-time police officer equal time to rebut. The officer not only agrees with the professor, but reveals a few "tricks of the trade" that officers use in interrogations to convict people whether they're guilty or not.

A fun video - the lawyer missed his career opportunity as an auctioneer. The cop steals the show. BTW: The cop is an "interviewer", not an "interrogator".

Regards

Mike

[ganulv]

Douglas Starr, a faculty member in Boston University’s College of Communication, was interviewed on Fresh Air yesterday in conjunction with his New Yorker (behind a pay-wall) article he wrote titled “The Interview.” He was trained in both the Reid and PEACE techniques in the course of putting the piece together. Most surprising (and not in a good way) assertion he made in the course of the interview was that confession typically trumps physical evidence in the American justice system.

[davidbfpo]

I note in The Fesh Air article linked that:

This was an early case in 1955. [Darrel Parker], a forester in Lincoln, Neb., came home to find his wife had been brutally raped and murdered, and John Reid himself was called in to do the interrogation......Finally, in the summer of 2012, the state publicly admitted [Reid's] mistake and formally exonerated [Parker], who was now in his 80s, and he said, "At least now I can die in peace."

I was trained in the PEACE model many years ago, as were and until a few years ago all operational police officers in my department. It is awhile since I used it in suspect interviews.

The PEACE model IMHO works best with witnesses. It is not really suitable for suspects, even more so when they have a legal adviser present. There is a general right of silence in the UK, although legally qualified. Policing here has steadily been working towards taking any comments in interviews are a bonus - which can in low impact crimes mean no prosecution.

[ganulv]

Yeah, the part concerning Mr. Parker was… sad is not even close to the appropriate word.

I was trained in the PEACE model many years ago, as were and until a few years ago all operational police officers in my department. It is awhile since I used it in suspect interviews.

The PEACE model IMHO works best with witnesses. It is not really suitable for suspects, even more so when they have a legal adviser present.

Has there been a replacement with any particular standardized training regime and/or technique in general, and for suspects in particular?

A bit of a tangent, but some of the language in the interview (there was mention of the PEACE technique being used extensively in England and Wales) lead me to understand that policing policies are at least partly decided at the country level and not necessarily at the level of the UK as a whole. Is that indeed the case?

[slapout9]

Yeah, the part concerning Mr. Parker was… sad is not even close to the appropriate word.



Has there been a replacement with any particular standardized training regime and/or technique in general, and for suspects in particular?

A bit of a tangent, but some of the language in the interview (there was mention of the PEACE technique being used extensively in England and Wales) lead me to understand that policing policies are at least partly decided at the country level and not necessarily at the level of the UK as a whole. Is that indeed the case?

Yes, this technique is replacing the REID technique.
http://www.w-z.com/

[davidbfpo]

In part:

A bit of a tangent, but some of the language in the interview (there was mention of the PEACE technique being used extensively in England and Wales) lead me to understand that policing policies are at least partly decided at the country level and not necessarily at the level of the UK as a whole. Is that indeed the case?

I don't know if the PEACE model is used in Northern Ireland and Scotland, both have different legal systems.

The model was used in my former department, I expect it is wider use in England & Wales, although it will not be a national policing decision, more acceptance of its value by each department (43 in Eng & Wales).

Your first question was:

Has there been a replacement with any particular standardized training regime and/or technique in general, and for suspects in particular?

There are specialist courses for interviewing, mainly for 'serious crime'. That was not my forte, so I cannot add more.

[Firn]

Thanks for ganulv and jmm99 for providing those links. Podcasts have the advantage that one can absorb the content whiled doing a workout, detailed papers enable one to dig deeper*.

... confession typically trumps physical evidence

This runs through both sources. There are certainly a couple of reasons for it, some already mentioned.

1) The wide-spread disbelief among agents (police, prosecutors, judges, jurors) that false confessions exist or do so at a considerable level is a big one. The amount of proven innocent in that sample that were actually convicted in a trial is amazingly high, which seems to indicate that jurors tend to grossly overweight confessions compared to physical evidence.

2) If a confession is obtained relatively early it seems that the effort to collect & evaluate solid physical evidence is greatly reduced. Limited ressources tend to get shifted to other cases. A plausible story gets constructed and conflicting evidence, if collected gets pushed away. The unique quality of DNA tests enables it collapse a plausible story built around a false confession.

3) The PEACE method seems to force the investigator to underweight the power of confessions. An interesting question to more knowledgable guys out there: Does the greater qualitiy and quantity of physical evidence (forensic science, information technology like cellphone location etc, etc...) make the PEACE approach more attractive and efficient relative to REID? If so in which cases?

*Many things in the paper were quite disgusting, sadly a considerable amount concerned processes of the justice system.

[jmm99]

REID tends to rely a bit too much on "folk psychology"; PEACE may rely a bit too much on CSI - which is not always available.

What one calls it is not so important as one being fully committed to the idea that proper planning and preparation prevent pi$$ poor performance.

I don't know what Det. Flores would call his methodology followed in the Jody Arias interrogation. He certainly followed the 7 P's rule (adding patience and persistence).

Jodi Arias Interrogation Tape. Part 1

Jodi Arias Interrogation Tape. Part 2

Jodi Arias Interrogation Tape. Part 3

Jodi Arias Interrogation Tape. Part 4

(Youtube; each over 2 hrs - just short of 9 hrs total; and, yes, I recently watched it all, looking for holes in Flores' methodology).

Note that, after all that, Det. Flores did not get a "full confession". Here's what he did do:

1. He obtained numerous material admissions against interest.

2. He demolished her various fabrications of fact by using forensic evidence.

And, Flores came across to me as a soft-spoken, nice guy. In short, he employed devastating police techniques without walking on the edge of the cliff or inducing a false confession.

A good, shorter article (with more recent references into 2012) is KTC, “Only the Guilty Would Confess to Crimes”
: Understanding the Mystery of False Confessions (Nov 2012), with researcher/expert responses at the end of the article from Saul Kassin, Walter Katz, Karen Franklin, and Larry Barksdale.

Here are some snips from a mock jury panel:

“In any kind of interrogation, anybody with any common sense wouldn’t agree to confessing to a murder. I mean that is…that is absurd."—Mock juror

“Your parents do that to you growing up. I mean your brother is not going to tell on himself. I have never once said, ‘All right, I did it’, when I didn’t do it. Not once. I don’t care how much she told me that he has done told on me, I am in trouble, it would be easier if I would go ahead and admit it.”—Mock juror

“They never even gave him a psych evaluation. Like they just kept battering him in the interrogation room and just on and on and on. I mean anybody is going to be mentally broke down or emotionally broken down after so long.”—Mock juror

“The police probably put him between a rock and a hard place, like, ‘You are going to be convicted anyways. If you go to trial, even though you didn’t do it, you will be convicted. If you are convicted, you will get twenty years. If you tell us you did it, then we can get you eight years.’ So it is more like, ‘Well, I would rather leave for eight years than twenty’.”—Mock juror

“To actually admit to a murder, something had to occur during that interview for him to start following what they wanted him to say. I mean you know if you killed somebody or not, you don’t miss that. You know without a doubt. So what happened during those hours that made him finally say, ‘Okay, yes, I will say I did it’?”—Mock juror

“But the whole confession part just angers me, because obviously if he wouldn’t have confessed and had stood his ground, we probably wouldn’t be here. So I don’t think he was coerced in any, I mean obviously pressured, but forced to say he did it? No.”—Mock juror

“The police say, “We did nothing wrong.” A confession kind of steered them in a different direction, but obviously, there couldn’t have been any physical evidence to tie him to it. So I guess you would have to say, the prosecutors did a very good job and the defense attorneys did a poor job.”—Mock juror

“I think the other thing he has to be careful about too is there are so many precedents and if you start doing this, like you said, because you don’t want to give him too little, because then everybody is going to say, ‘Well, I will just wrongfully say I did this and then five or ten years down the road, I can get $20 million or $5 million’.” – Mock juror

Obviously, some differences of opinion exist.

Another very material point that has to be confronted is whether false confessions are a mountain or a molehill. Consider the millions of criminal cases brought in the US since 1971 (the starting year for the 2004 Drizin & Leo study), as compared to the proven false confession cases (in the hundreds). Of course, if one operates under the rule that it is better for 100 (or more) guilty to go free lest 1 innocent be convicted, then one possibly looks at it as a mountain-sized problem. I see it as a molehill-sized problem.

Finally, the reliability of such studies as Drizin & Leo's, as applied to any individual case without the expert relating those general studies to the facts of the particular case, can reasonably be questioned. E.g., in our own, Michigan v. Jerome Walter Kowalski (2012), Michigan Supreme Court, No. 141932, excluding Dr. Leo's generalized testimony, but allowing more particular testimony by another expert:

We hold that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the expert testimony regarding the published literature on false confessions and police interrogations on the basis of its determination that the testimony was not reliable, even though the subject of the proposed testimony is beyond the common knowledge of the average juror.

We also hold, however, that the circuit court abused its discretion by excluding the proffered testimony regarding defendant’s psychological characteristics because it failed to consider this evidence separately from the properly excluded general expert testimony and therefore failed to properly apply both MRE 702 and MRE 403 to that evidence.

For example, even if the expert proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the 'gator followed Imbau-Reid to the letter, that doesn't prove that the particular confession (or admission) was false or coerced. Taking the Arias interrogation as an example, the expert would have to identify certain techniques by Flores which caused Arias to say certain things which she otherwise wouldn't have said - and for the defense attorney to introduce other evidence that what she said then was untrue.

In short, the defense attorney is faced with the difficult task of convincing the jury that she lied then (albeit because of the devil cop), but she is telling the truth now.

Regards

Mike

PS: Giving the last word to John E. Reid & Associates, Inc (its legal note on the Kowalski case):

Recognized As The World Leader In Interview And Interrogation Training. If it doesn't say "The Reid Technique" it's not John E. Reid & Associates, Inc. Celebrating 65 Years of Excellence in Service.

since neither Slap nor I said much about REID in this thread.

[jmm99]

this:

... 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):

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