Police Interrogation Techniques: When do they go too far?

POLICE INTERROGATION

2009

Interrogations are considered to be one of the most important phases of the investigation process (Holmberg Christianson , 2002 . Once a confession statement is obtained during an interrogation it is not easily retracted . Police , prosecutors , judges , and lay people find the idea of an innocent person confessing to a crime , especially a serious one such as homicide , rape , and the like , highly unlikely (Leo Ofshe 1998 . In most cases criminal investigators are not trained to believe that false confessions occur and can be easily obtained from suspects Furthermore

, they are not likely to understand the social processes that occur during an intense custodial interrogation . As research indicates the interrogation process is guilt-presumptive process that can easily stimulate cognitive and behavioral confirmation processes (Kassin 1997

Russano et al (2005 ) developed a novel experimental design with which to examine the effects of highly intense psychological interrogation techniques on the elicitation of true and false confession . The study included both guilty and innocent participants who were accused of breaking an experimental rule . The researchers analyzed the influence of two popular interrogation techniques used by police interviewers minimizations and leniency . What the outcome of the study revealed was that guilty people were more likely to confess than innocents , and also that the use of leniency and minimization resulted in higher rates of both true and false confessions (Russano et al , 2005 . The authors suggest that police investigators should stay away from applying interrogative techniques that offer leniency , because they "appear to reduce...