Police Interrogation Techniques

Introduction

Many important court cases depend on memory-based evidence. When there is not enough physical evidence to convict a suspect, law enforcement relies on testimonies and confessions to put criminals behind bars, yet, not all testimonies are reliable. Throughout the years, there have been many people who have been falsely convicted based on inadequate police interrogation methods that allowed for false confessions to occur.

Effectiveness of Interrogation Methods Used by Civil Law Enforcement Every level of law enforcement uses some form of interrogation to get valuable information from a person. Police officers interrogate persons of interest to get information such as alibis, motives and witness accounts. Many court cases rely

For example intimidation, bribery, denial of rights and mental exhaustion are against the guidelines of the Reid Technique, however, they are often used in order to gain a suspect’s cooperation (https://www.cga.ct.gov/2014/rpt/2014-R-0071.htm). In an investigation where a father was accused of murdering his infant son, the interrogators repeatedly used techniques to mentally exhaust the suspect in an effort to break him. Throughout the interrogation, the father repeatedly denied that he was at fault, however, the interrogator insisted that he was, describing different scenarios that could have played out and suggesting different motives the father could have had in killing the infant. At one point the interrogator claimed he had “received detailed information about the infant’s injuries from the medical examiner that disproved what the father said”, even though the coroner’s report couldn’t prove anything (Brainerd,

Gallini (2009), who holds a Juris doctor, a master of law degree, and is widely recognized in the community for his opinions on interrogation techniques, is a firm disbeliever in the Reid Technique. He believes that “the methodology underlying the Reid technique fails every aspect of the Supreme Court’s standards governing the admission of expert evidence” and that evidence collected through the Reid technique should not be relied on (p. 529). In addition to Gallini’s beliefs, Dr. Christian Meissner, who holds a Ph.D. in cognitive and behavioral sciences, has stated in multiple texts that the interrogation methods used by law enforcement frequently produce false confessions. If the suspect believes that there is evidence against him, if he truly believes that all hope is lost, and then is offered a bargain. If he confesses he could get a lighter prison sentence. A person would assume that an innocent man would never take up that offer, however, when an innocent man is put in a situation where he is mentally exhausted, has been told that there is evidence against him and honestly believes that he is going to jail, he may confess in the attempt to make his impending doom a little less