Crime: Topic #3 = Collection Of Evidence - Cog.

Question 1

What can police interviews do if conducted professionally?

Answer 1

• direct an investigation and gather material, which in turn can lead to a prosecution or early release of an innocent person
• support the prosecution case, thereby saving time, money and resources
• increase public confidence in the police service, particularly with witnesses and victims of crimes who come into direct contact with the police.

Question 2

What did Inbau (1962) & Reid do?

Answer 2

Inbau & Reid wrote the book Criminal Interrogations and Confessions, a police handbook in 1962, which is still used today.

The manual includes a number of techniques for interviewing and interrogation suspects, known as the ‘Reid Technique’.

It includes the Reid Nine Steps of Interrogation.

Question 3

What is the difference between an interview and an interrogation?

Answer 3

INTERVIEW:
- Search for the truth.

INTERROGATION:
- Manipulate the suspect into talking.
- Believe in guild and search for a confession.

Question 4

Summarise Reid’s Nine Steps

Answer 4

Step 1: Positive confrontation
Say you have evidence that confirms guilt.

Step 2: Theme development
Shift blame or set up circumstances that prompted them to commit the crime.

Step 3: Handling denials
Never allow the suspect to deny guild – block any denials.

Step 4: Overcoming objections
Don’t argue with suspects objections, use them against them ‘I’d be scared too’.

Step 5: Procurement and retention of suspect’s attention
Re-engage attention, don’t just let them sit there and think.

Step 6: Handling the suspect’s passive mood
If they cry, use this to infer guilt.

Step 7: Presenting an alternative question
Give them two choices of what happened – guild will always be admitted though.

Step 8: Get the suspect to confess orally and to tell in full the details of their crime
Confess all in detail.

Step 9: Conversion of the oral confession into a written or audio or videotaped confession
Full account given and signed.

Question 5

What criticisms have been made of the Reid Techniques?

Answer 5

If the initial interview to determine guilt or innocence was incorrect and decided that an innocent person was guilty, the Reid Technique doesn’t let them prove their innocence as it works on the basis, they are guilty and uses it against them to get a (and until there is a) confession.

Also, it can be seen as coercion and result in false confessions.

Question 6

What types of false confessions are there?

Answer 6

• Voluntary:
  Where a person admits to an offence that they have NOT committed because they BELIEVE THEY HAVE done it.
• Coerced-Internalised:
  The person is CONVINCED BY THE POLICE that they committed the crime, even though they DID NOT.
• Coerced-compliant:
  A person confesses to a crime that they KNOW THEY DID NOT commit.

Question 7

Voluntary false confession

Answer 7

Where a person admits to an offence that they have NOT committed because they BELIEVE THEY HAVE done it.

Question 8

Coerced-Internalised false confession

Answer 8

The person is CONVINCED BY THE POLICE that they committed the crime, even though they DID NOT.

Question 9

Coerced-compliant false confession

Answer 9

A person confesses to a crime that they KNOW THEY DID NOT commit.

Question 10

What reasons (factors that cause) do some people confess?

(False confessions)

Answer 10

1- Circumstances surrounding the case.
2- High / low media attention.
3- The techniques and processes used in
the interview.
4- The arrest and interrogation process.
5- Personality of the suspect.
6- Suspects demographic profile. (Gender,
race, age, social class, poverty etc.)
7- Mental and physical state of the suspect.

Question 11

What factors did Gudjonsson (2003) argue could lead to a false confession?

Answer 11

1. The defendant – age, IQ
2. The arrest – sudden, violent, time of day
3. Mental / physical state – stress, mental health, ill, intoxicated
4. The interrogation – coercive, biased or leading

Question 12

Describe the case of the Guildford Four and how this is linked to Gudjonsson and false confessions.

Answer 12

Guildford four:
On the 5th October 1974 IRA bombs destroyed 2 pubs in Guildford, killing 5 and injuring more.

Carole Richardson was arrested on 3rd December and questioned until 12th December.

She had taken a large dose of barbiturates on the 1st day of questioning.
She confessed to planting one of the bombs, but retracted it later.

As questioning continued she became more distressed and was not given a solicitor until 11th December, and was unable to notify anyone of her arrest.
The police were confident of her guilt and had full control over the situation.

With time, Carole came to believe that she was the bomber as she could not remember what she was doing on the 5th October.

She was found guilty in 1975, but 20 years later her conviction was declared a miscarriage of justice.

LINKS:
This links to Gudjonssons suggestion about there being different types of false confession because at first Carole Richardson made a voluntary false confession, as she believed she had done it and she confessed to planting one of the bombs, however later on she retracted her confession, and it became a coerced-internalised false confession because the police made her believe that she was the bomber once again.

Question 13

What procedures have been put in place in the UK to try to reduce the likelihood of false confessions?

Answer 13

E.g.,:

Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) in 1984 which encompasses the following:

1- Requires all interviews to be recorded in
triplicate – to ensure interview is not
coercive and leadings.
2- Vulnerable adults should be identified n
and assigned an ‘appropriate adults’.
3- Part of this code is the ‘right to remain
silent’ right given then arrested.

Question 14

What core study can you link eye witness memory to? What did this core study say about memory?

Answer 14

STUDY:
Loftus & Palmer

WHY?:
It claimed that memory is influenced by leading questions (e.g., from police interviews) as the conclusion stated that memory is a combination of the original information and information given after the event e.g., leading questions.

This means it suggests that no leading questions are asked whilst interviewing a witness as it my unconsciously change their memory of the event, leading to it not being a truthful recall, so it can not be used as evidence in court etc.

Question 15

What did Fisher & Geisalman (1984) do?

Answer 15

Developed a technique to help improve the accuracy of witness testimony collected by police interviews:

-> The original ‘Cognitive Interview technique’

Question 16

What is the The original ‘Cognitive Interview technique’ based on?

Answer 16

The technique is based on on two principles:

1. Recall is better if the cues / context in which the recall is taking place, match where the encoding took place.
2. There is more than one retrieval path (don’t have to recall the event in the order it happened. E.g., can start from the middle / recall it backwards).

Question 17

What was the original Cognitive Interview technique made up of?

What did they entail?

Answer 17

Four memory retrieval techniques:

1- Report everything
Report every detail you can recall, even if it seems trivial.

2-Recall in different temporal orders
Report the episode in several different temporal orders moving backwards and forwards in time.

3- Mental reinstatement of context
Mentally reinstate the context of the target event.
Recall the scene, the weather, what you were thinking and feeling at the time, the preceding events, etc.

4- Recall from a variety of different perspectives
Try to describe the episode as it would have been seen from different viewpoints, not just your own.

Question 18

What did Fisher et al (1989) do / find?

-> do?
-> Method?
-> IV?
-> DV?
-> Findings

Answer 18

Conducted research to test the use of the CI technique in a real-life setting.

What method was used?
A field experiment.

Method:
Compared Floridian police officers interview performance before and after training in cognitive interview.

What were the interview about?
A total of 88 interviews were recorded by the police (Ps) over a period of 4 months, meaning they were actual interviews, not ones made for the purpose of the study. They mainly included commercial robbery and handbag snatching.

What was the IV?
Whether they used cognitive interview or not.

What was measured (DV)?
The information that was collected (whether CI worked).

Who analysed the interviews?
Team at the University of California.

What were the findings?
It was found that the cognitive interview 63% more information and is easily learned by the police.

Question 19

In 1992 Fisher & Gieselman revised the CI and created the enhanced cognitive interview. What is the difference between the old CI and new ECI?

Answer 19

They added 4 steps to the original framework.

1. NEW: Create a rapport with witness.
2. NEW: Tell the witness what to expect.
3. OLD: Context reinstatement.
4. OLD: Report with everything.
5. OLD: Recall from different perspectives & orders.
6. NEW: “Witness-compatible questioning” specific questions that focusses only on the mental image at the time.
7. NEW: Memory jogs e.g., mnemonics, sketches.

Question 20

What does ? Research by Vrij & Mann (2001) suggest?

Answer 20

Police are not much better than the rest of us at recognising deception.

Question 21

Outline Research by Vrij & Mann (2001)

-> Aim
-> Sample
-> Method
-> Findings
-> Conclusion

Answer 21

AIM:
To examine the ability of police officers to detect deception.

SAMPLE:
52 police officers from the Netherlands.

METHOD:
8 short clips from video press conferences where people were asking the general public for help in finding their relatives or the murderers of their relatives.

• 5 of these clips were of people who had later been convicted of the crime!
  Officers watched each clip and then had to indicate
• If the person in the video was lying
• How confident they were with their judgment (1-7)
• Whether any behavioural cues prompted their decision.

FINDINGS:
42/59 of the officers did no better than if they were simply guessing.

CONCLUSION:
That detecting deception is a difficult task at which even police officers are not very good

Question 22

Memon and Highnam 1999

Answer 22

LEARN! - key study

Question 23

APPLICATION - How can it improve police interviewing?

Leading Questions

Answer 23

Loftus & palmer found that the way questions are asked can affect how the eyewitness later recall the events e.g., by causing false memories. This was shown when the Ps estimated different speeds depending on the type of critical verb used e.g., collided, hit, smashed etc. and also whether the Ps saw broken glass or not.

This can help improve police interviewing by avoiding the use of leading questions so as not to influence their answer.

Question 24

APPLICATION - How can it improve police interviewing?

The cognitive interview or ECI PEACE

Answer 24

The cognitive interview consists of 4 stages; context reinstatement, report everything, and then recall from different perspectives & temporal orders. This helps to improve the EW’s recall ability of the event. The enhanced cognitive interview is the same as the cognitive interview but with 4 additional stages; create a rapport with witness, tell the witness what to expect, then after the CI stages are completed, the witness-compatible questioning stage, and the memory jogs.

PEACE consists of 5 stages; protocol and planning, explain, account & challenge, closure and evaluation. This is used to conduct a better interview by e.g., putting the EW or suspect at ease by using the more social approach so they are more likely to confess / remember things.

This can be used to improve police interviewing as it suggests that protocols should be used to provide a standardized structure to make them more reliable.

Question 25

APPLICATION - How can it improve police interviewing?

Reid Nine Steps

Answer 25

Reid’s nine steps for confession of suspects (which uses interrogation) should not be used in a police interview as it is likely to produce false confessions of a suspect as it is structured to coercing a suspect into giving a confession.

Question 26

APPLICATION - How can it improve police interviewing?

Gudjonnson’s advice and the GSS

Answer 26

Gudjonnson’s advice and the GSS would advise police to take the eye witness or suspects individual factors like their age or race in account so that the ways in which people are interviewed are suitable for them. Sometimes an appropriate adults may be needed for those who may be vulnerable.

Question 27

APPLICATION - How can it improve police interviewing?

Code E of the police and criminal evidence Act (1984)

Answer 27

Use audio recordings to help prevent false confessions from happening, and increases the public’s confidence in the police. It also means that interviews would be more accurate, and the suspect should be read their rights so their words can be help accountable in court.

Question 28

APPLICATION - How can it improve police interviewing?

Memon & Higham - training and type of interview

Answer 28

Would suggest that the type of interview used should be cognitive in a police interview. They also suggested a 2 day training program and that the police should drop the different perspectives and orders stages from the cognitive interview.

Question 29

APPLICATION - How can it improve police interviewing?

Forensic hypnosis

Answer 29

This is a controversial method occasionally used (USA) to retrieve information under hypnosis that would otherwise be unavailable to the interviewee.
CAUTION: heightened susceptibility to suggestions when hypnotised.