Reading Blog due Monday 2/27 @ midnight

When police have the suspect in an interrogation room they want to get the person to say that they committed the crime. Sometimes though this leads to false confessions. A main reason that they want them to confess to it is because it will make thing quicker. When a suspect confesses to committing the crime than they will plead guilty in court and save time. A confession puts a suspect on a route straight to conviction because jury members will almost always convict someone once they confess to committing the crime. Confessions are rated as significantly more incriminating than any other form of evidence, and were rated as the most powerful influential piece of evidence. In some cases jurors are unable to see when someone has confessed falsely. Even if the person was under high pressure at the time of his interrogation, which lead him to say he did it, he will still get convicted 81% of the time. Fundamental attribution error is when, in the case, we discount the pressure of the interrogation process as a cause of a suspect’s confession.

Interrogations techniques started with direct physical violence, than moved onto physical torture, and finally has arrived at psychological means of coercion. Police started out with using physical weapons on their suspects to get them to confess. They used everything from their fists to electric shock. They did this because guilty suspects usually resist confessing to their crimes. They thought the best way to get them to confess was through violence. When the media and public became aware of all this torture being used on the suspect’s things had to change, but they didn’t change for the better. They just made it so that they didn’t leave any marks on the suspect. They forced them under water to the point of almost drowning, isolated them, didn’t let them use the bathroom, and withholding food. This type of torture has a lot to do with cognitive psychology because it really messes with the mind of the suspect. Legal actions began to be made so that the suspects could have rights. This became known as the Miranda Rights. The Miranda Rights are made up of four parts describing what the suspect or criminal is allowed to have. They are allowed to remain silence, are allowed to an attorney(even if you can’t afford one), and are asked if they understand what was just read to them. There is a good majority of criminals who waive their Miranda rights. The theories that have been created for this are that they are innocent, guilty but want to appear cooperative, or aren’t thinking clearly when being taken into custody. In these interrogations they may get the suspect to give a “voluntary” confession. The Supreme Court has made it so that the trial judges have to follow the totality of circumstances. One thing that is hard for trial judges is to know which side to take when a “swearing contest” happens. Both sides say they are right and it is hard for them to ever go against the police. Again these techniques have to do with the suspect’s mental environment so it has to deal with cognitive psychology.

The most well-known psychological approach in an investigation is the good cop-bad cop because you see it on television and in movies all the time. This could be an example of behavioral psychology because of the personalities the cops take over to create a certain type of behavior to get the suspect to confess. In good cop-bad cop two interrogators work as a team was goes in being mean and intimidating while the other shows sympathy and understanding. There are nine steps of interrogation in the Reid technique. Underlying those nine steps are four basic influence strategies. These foundational strategies include: loss of control, social isolation, certainty of guilt, and exculpatory scenarios. The loss of control is where the suspect is help in a small room where every aspect of the interrogation is controlled by the interrogator. The main goals of this strategy is to remove any familiar surroundings, and to communicate in a blunt and subtle way. Social isolation is another strategy of interrogation where the suspect is almost always interrogated alone. The goals to this strategy so to make sure that he suspect isn’t allowed any emotional support and to minimize contradictory information. Certainty of guilt is a third strategy used. In this strategy the interrogator starts by telling the suspect that they are guilty. This is followed by the denial of the suspect, which is then turned right back at them because the interrogator will keep saying, “You did it, and you know you did it.” Evidence ploys something used by the investigators in the third strategy. This is when the police come up with false information so that the suspect will start to get uncomfortable. This strategy is as good as the interrogator can be. It is all based on imagination and getting the suspect to believe in you bluff. The fourth strategy is exculpatory scenarios. This is when the interrogator tries to shift the blame off the suspect and onto someone else like the victim. This strategy is all about being sympathetic to the suspect even if he may have molested a child.

In some cases the interrogators or police may actually convince an innocent person that they committed the crime. The book talks about how the police were able to manipulate Thomas Sawyers memory into thinking that he committed the crime. This can happen to anyone depending on the vulnerability. People can be vulnerable for all types of reasons including: sleep deprivation, young, naïve, on drugs, drunk, etc. Youth is a very big vulnerability. It has been found that 32% of proven false confessions have been given by suspects under the age of 18. This has to deal with developmental psychology because of the fact that the brain isn’t fully developed yet. There are four types of false confession. The first one is instrumental-coerced false confessions. This is caused by a long or intense interrogation, and the suspect confess to a crime they know they didn’t commit. The second type is instrumental-voluntary false conviction. This is when the suspect knowingly admits to the crime in order to fulfill something else. This means that someone may take the heat of the crime so that someone else doesn’t get into trouble. The third type is authentic-coerced false confession. This is when a suspect has to go through a long or intense interrogation and is convinced, by the interrogator, that he is the one who committed the crime. The fourth and final kind is authentic-voluntary false conviction. This is when someone who suffers from delusions confesses to a crime with little or no pressure from the interrogator.

Countries outside of the United States study cops behavior in an interrogation a lot more than we do. There is an act called Police and Criminal Evidence Act that makes it illegal for cops to lie about what evidence they have. It also requires that they audio record the interrogations so that other can listen to it later during the trial. In the United States cops are still allowed to lie about evidence so that they can get a confession.

Video recordings, time limits, an appropriate adult, and expert testimony are just some of the things that can be used in an interrogation to get better results. Video recording should be used so that the jurors can see what happened in the interrogation. It helps because you can see as well as hear what actually happened and not have to struggle with who to believe since you can see if for yourself. One problem with video recording is that fact that it can be cut to only show the guilt in the suspect. Another problem that can arise is who is seen in the video, if you can’t see both people in the room than the jury isn’t going to be able to feel what was going on with both sides. This can be solved with equal-focus camera perspective. Most interrogations now embrace video recordings. A good thing with video recording is that it can help researchers answer some questions on how false confessions are brought up. There should be a time limit on interrogations so as to not make the suspect feel trapped. The longer the interrogation the higher risk for false confessions. An “appropriate adult” is a person who is qualified to sit in with a youth when they are being questioned. This also can be used with a mentally impaired suspect. Parents can sometimes hold this role, but it is better if it is an attorney or someone not related to the child. Social psychologists are used in expert testimony to help the jury understand whether or not the suspect was led to falsely confess.

I find it very shocking that as a form of torture they made a suspect sit with his head against a dead body in the morgue. That is truly disgusting. I also found it shocking that about 80% of criminals will waive their Miranda rights. I also found it shocking that 25% of wrongful convictions are because of false confessions. I didn’t really have many thoughts about interrogations. I did think that the good cop-bad cop was just something that was on television. I didn’t know that it was actually used. I wanted to learn more about appropriate adults.

http://www.onside-advocacy.org.uk/what-we-do/appropriate-adult.html
This is a website dedicated to appropriate adults. This is a company called Onside. This company basically will help you if you are ever in need of having someone who isn’t related to the police. It says that they are independent of the police and help with the following: Look after the detained person’s welfare, explain police procedures, provide information about their rights and ensure that these are protected, facilitate communication with the police.

http://www.appropriateadult.org.uk/
This is another website about appropriate adults. This is website is for people in England or Wales. This website even if it isn’t for the United States still gives some good information on what they do. It talks about who and when an appropriate adult is used.

I have read about many accounts of false confessions in my academic career. In all of them, the interrogators flat out broke the law and committed acts of evil against the suspect, to the point that the suspect decided that it was better to confess and tell them what they wanted to hear than remain in such torture. Police officers can embody everything that's wrong with psychology...They use pretty much every tactic that is deemed unethical by the APA. But, because they're officers of the law, and not involved with the psychological community, they get away with it.

One thing that I found very interesting was that on page 33 in the textbook, it stated that "Since 1961, confessions have generally been ruled as inadmissible if judged to be the result of physical force, sleep or food deprivation, prolonged isolation, explicit threats of violence, clear promises of lenient sentences, or explicit promises of immunity from prosecution." (Costanzo & Krauss 33)
All of these things sounded pretty normal except for one thing. The part about clear promises of lenient sentences doesn't seem like it should be in there.

http://www.larkenrose.com/blogs/861-blog/1601.html

This is the link for an article that I just read about plea bargains being a form of forced confessions. However, this article is evidence that despite the law that is posted above, prosecutors are still using (and getting away with using) plea bargains as a form of forced confession.

With all of the above noted, and my dissatisfaction with the government just as strong as always, I do however acknowledge that they sometimes get it right. Some cops are still out there every day with the intention of helping out the citizens, and just want to protect us from the dangers in the world. I admire those people. I am just concerned with a system that allows for situations to occur in which innocent people can fall through the cracks and police interrogators can inflict serious psychological harm upon a human being who remains INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN THE COURT OF LAW. I watched the show Cops every Saturday night from before I can remember until I moved out of my parents' house. I used to believe that it was great to live in America, because it's the only place where people actually believe and treat you as though you're innocent until they can prove that you are guilty. Something needs to be changed in the system to ensure that we restore this right that seems to have been forgotten.

The chapter starts with the power of a confession. The confession helps speed up the conviction process because trials can be avoided and it can stop the long slow process of examining the evidence. It can do this because people who confess usually plead guilty and because guilty suspects who confess usually where critical evidence can be found. This can make additional evidence less critical, and this is the closest prosecuters can get to a guaranteed conviction. Then it was found in research that confessions led to a rate of 73% conviction rate. It was also found in research that confessions are more incriminating then any other piece of evidence. The thing is that not all confessions are the real thing. People confess to crimes that they didnt commit or give false confessions. How is this done you say well police have several itimidating interrogation methods, but it was also found in research that even if the confession was thrown out because it was false, 81% were still convicted. So it is very hard for a jury to ignore a confession. This can be explained by the fundamental attribution error which is the tendency to attribute other people's behavior to dispositional causes and dismiss the situational pressures acting on the person. Then it goes into the evolution of interrogation techniques. Police interrogation techiques have evolved for over a century. Prior to 1930 police used beatings, burnings, twisting a man's testicles, and even pulling suspects up by their hair. This all ended with the Report on Lawlessness in the Law Enforcement. This documented a lot of the abuse by police and focused the attention on how the treatment of suspects in police custody. This just changed from direct abuse to convert forms of abuse which include sleep deprivation, standing for long periods of time, drowning, and many more. Then after a series of legal decisions made police stop doing this and more psychological forms of coercion. This lead to suspects getting the miranda rights which are 1. the right to remain silent, 2. you have the right to have an attorney present during questioning, 3. if you cant afford an attorney one will be appointed to you, 4. do you understand these rights. Surprizing that only 20% of people choose to exercise their miranda rights and 80% waive their rights. Now the voluntary nature of a confession is judged by the totality of circumstances around the confession, but police still have their coercion techniques. Then it goes into the modern interrogation room. Police use several psychological techniques for example good cop bad cop approach, and this is where one cop acts abusive and crazy and the other acts nice and sain. Police officers even read manuals. These manuals give advice on what to say, how to set up an interrogation room, and many other details. The one it most referred to is the Reid Technique or nine steps of interrogation, and these steps are basic influence strategies, 1. loss of control, 2. social isolation, 3. certainty of guilt, and 4. exculpatory scenarios. The process of interrogation is based on loss of control. This is show because when interrogated the suspects well being is in the hands of the officers. This leads the suspect to be anxious and vulnerable. The second part is social isolation, and this can be seen because most times a suspect is interrogated alone. This is done to deprive the suspect of emotional support. The third strategy is certainty of guilt. This is done with evidence ploys and training to cut off denial efforts of the suspect. The fourth strategy is constructing exculpatory scenarios. These scenarios work by shifting the blame from the suspect to someone else, or to circumstances surrounding the act, or by redefining the act. The next part is the problem of false confessions. 25% of known wrongful convictions involved false confessions. Just like the research I stated earlier evenn with false confession 80% were convicted, and the most vunerable to this is youths. 32% of false confessions are given by suspects under 18. Then it talks about different types of false confessions. They can be broken down to four catergories, 1. instrumental-coerced false confessions and they occur when, as a result of a long and intense interrogation, suspects confess to crimes they know they didnt commit, 2. instrumental-voluntary false confessions and they occur when suspects knowingly implicate themselves in crimes they didnt commit in an effort to achieve a goal, 3. authentic-coerced false confession and they occur when as a product of a long and intense interrogation a suspect becomes convinced that they committed the crime, and 4. authentic-voluntary false confession and they occur when someone suffering from delusions confesses to a crime with no pressure from the police. Then it goes on to tell the police are legally permitted to use false evidence to produce a conviction. Then this bairs the question, should they be able to do this? But in 1986 the Police and Criminal act made this illegal. Now there are potential solutions to the problem of false confessions, some of these are video recording interrogations, time limits on interrogations, the safe guard for vulnerable suspects, and expert witness testimony on interrogations and confessions.
What I learned in this chapter blew my mind. I had always assumed that interrogation didnt go that way that police arent that biased, but they are with all of their coercion techniques. This chapter made me completly review my ideas on how the interrogation process goes from start to end. The thing that I wanted to learn more about is the police and criminal evidence act.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/contents
This was the website that I found. On this website I found that this piece of legislation has over 200 different provision and it is extremely detailed from the point of initial contact of the suspect all the way the conviction. It has guide line on what can be done to the suspect in forms of coercion and like I stated before it is detailed from every single angle you could think of.

2/27/2012
Chapter 2 Interrogations and Confessions
This chapter discusses how interrogations can provoke false confessions. The chapter starts off with a case study where a woman was raped and beaten – beaten so badly that it was a miracle she even survived. There were a group of boys that were brought into the police stations and interrogated. In the end 5 of the 6 boys that were interrogated confessed to the attack and rape. In reality none of these boys attacked or raped this woman. The rest of the chapter goes on to discuss how and why on earth someone would confess to a crime that they did not commit (I thought this cases study was a great example because it was not just one person that had a false confessions but five!).
The chapter sets up the power of confession. It gives statistics of convictions of crimes when the suspect has confessed. They look at the extent of coercion that the suspect is subjected to and then they look at how many are still convicted in cases where the jury (mock jury) is aware that there was heavy or high coercion. Studies show that regardless of the extent of coercion the suspect that has confessed is more likely to be convicted. A key term that is brought up in this section is fundamental attribution error this is the tendency to attribute other people’s behavior to dispositional causes (traits, personality) and to dismiss the situational pressures acting on the person. Now judges are supposed to take into account whether or not the suspect’s situational pressure to see if confession should be admitted into the court/case. The judge may rule that a confession was coerced and is inadmissible, but this does not happen often.
Interrogation techniques have evolved over time. In the olden times (1930’s and back) police were allowed to beat the confessions out of suspects, literally. They could use their fists, gun grips, rubber hoses, etc. When these tactics were outlawed there were ways of getting information that left no marks. Suspects could be hung out of windows or above tall stairwells by their feet. They could held under water or deprived of food, water or bathroom; there were also psychological techniques. These techniques included prolonged isolation, threats of violence, promise of immunity to name a few. Today if any of these tactics are used in getting a confession the confessions will be inadmissible.
The book also discussed Miranda rights these can broke down into four parts 1. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in the court of law; 2. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning; 3. If you cannot afford an attorney, you have the right have an attorney appointed to you prior to questioning; and 4. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you? If a suspect has been made aware of their Miranda rights then what they say cannot be include in the case later. Many times people will waive these rights. If someone is truly innocent and they ‘have nothing to hide,’ if someone does not want to seem uncooperative with the police. There are also ways that police officers can present the Miranda rights that make them seem like unimportant protocol; said in a monotone way.
Next the book discusses what happens inside the modern interrogation room. They start by explaining the good-cop/bad-cop routine. I think we are all familiar with this from crime movie or television series. This is where two cops take part in interrogation. One cop is more dominant and forward; accusing the suspect that they are guilty and should be convicted. The second cop is more neutral and even sympathetic toward the suspect. They may try and calm the other cop (the bad cop) down. This is supposed to gain the suspect’s trust. Then when the bad cop leaves and the good cop and the suspect are alone that is when the suspect is to confide or confess to the good cop.
From here we move onto the nine steps of interrogation. In congruence with these steps there are four basic influence strategies. First, there is loss of control this is when suspects are interrogated in a small, sparse, room where every aspect of the situation-including the physical environment, the direction and pacing of the conversation, and the length of the interrogation-are controlled by the interrogator. Second, there is social isolation this is when suspects are interrogated alone (as usual). This is to prevent any social support and to minimize contradictory information. Third, is certainty of guilt this is when interrogators start with an accusation of guilt and then cut off and dismiss their denial. Fourth and finally, there are evidence ploys. This is when interrogators will cite real and fabricated information. When there is little evidence to suggest that this suspect committed the crime the interrogator may make up and lie about having evidence that is incriminating.
This chapter also discusses four types of false confessions. The first is mental-coerced false confessions these occur when suspects confess to a crime they did not commit after a long of intense interrogation. Secondly, instrumental-voluntary false confession is when a suspect knowingly confesses when they know they did not commit the crime in order to achieve some sort of goal. Third there is authentic-coerced false confession this is when a suspect becomes convinced that they did commit the crime, if even temporarily after long or intense interrogation. Lastly, there is authentic-voluntary false confession. This is when someone confesses to a crime with little to no pressure while they are suffering from delusions.
The book talk about the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE).This is an act put into place in Great Britain. It means that law enforcement cannot lie or trick suspects into gaining a confession. In the United States, however, we are still allowed to use these tactics. This is discussion on whether or not this should be allowed. In GB even after PACE was instated the rates of confessions stayed the same. So does it matter? Are police still using these tactics just out of views way? Would it be the same for the U.S.? One suggestion is to use a video camera to monitor lying or trickery to make sure that coercion is not ending in a false confession. But then one has to consider where that video camera is pointed. The book also looks at time limits on interrogations. The limit being argued if four hours. I think time limit is a good idea. I know that even while in class or have an in-depth discussion with someone take a lot out of me! To hole my attention for that long – it’s exhausting. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have to be under such pressure for four hours and keep my attention at an acceptable or normal level.
The last thing the book talks about is expert testimony on interrogations and confessions. I think it is important they explain research that documents certain phenomenon. For example, how certain interrogation methods can increase the potential for a false connection. Hopefully with this awareness being brought into the court room in a well-explained and scientifically confident manner it will decrease the number of false confession and convictions of innocent people.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/training/sat
I decided to look further into interrogation techniques both legal and illegal. This was the main area that surprised me. I can’t imagine being treated this way by law enforcement. But, I guess if we are living in a world were Primal Fear is not far from reality then police brutality is not that far of a stretch. I looked into military tactics and incidences of using improper techniques to gain information. This site talks about the training that our FBI goes through. This article talks about how suspects are treated humanely but with caution etc.
http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/police-brutality-poland
This article discussed Polish police and cases of extreme brutality. I spent a semester abroad in Poland last year and I heard some seemingly far-fetched stories about police using excessive force. On the one hand this really worried me (even more so when I see how deaths resulted), but on the other hand I found in reassuring that they apparently come out of nowhere and people react when they are present. I didn’t see one fight while I lived in Poland for four months. I’m not saying that police brutality is good, but it is interesting to understand why some countries to not prohibit it.

This chapter discussed how police use different tactics in interrogations to get a confession out of a suspect. I found it surprising that 68 percent of the time police can get an elicit self-incriminating statement from a suspect during an interrogation. Confessions are so important to police because it will speed up the investigation and trial, plus it is almost a guarenteed conviction for the prosecutors. Studies have shown that confessions are the most incriminating evidence. Just knowing a suspect confessed is so powerful in determining a jurys verdict. It known that a jury who KNOWS the confession was clearly coerced are still more likely to vote guilty on the verdict. This can somewhat be explained by the fundamental attribtuion error, which is when a person will dismiss the situational pressures acting on a person.

Interrogation has evolved for many years. Police use to be able to use torture or pyshical abuse that leaves no marks, but now they can only use psychological means to get a confession. Physical abuse is obvious, hitting, beating, etc. These became prohibited in the 1930s. The abuse without leaving marks could be restricting food supply, bathroom priviledges, or putting them in isolation. Police would drag women by their hair, hold people from their toes, and even put their heads into toilets almost to the point of drowning. Now since the 1960s, judeges will rule the confession inadmissible if the suspect had gone through abuse, food or sleep deprivation, or so on. Another important part of interrogations are to make sure the suspects are read their Miranda Rights. Once they hear these it gives police the right to use anything they say against them. This is why I find it so hard to believe that only 20 percent of people actually take advantage of these rights. People waive their rights for different reasons:they just want to help the police or they don't want to appear guilty. To avoid admitting coerced confessions into trial judges are asked to look at the totality of circumstances. This often leads to a "swearing contest" in which the police often win.

Techniques like the good cop-bad cop are still used. Almost everybody has seen this technique in movies. This is a highly effective technique that usually gets a confession. The Reid technique is also used. This technique relies on loss of control, social isolation, certainty of guilt, and exculpatory scenarios. There are nine steps to the reid technique. Loss of control makes the suspect more vulnerable to the interrogation. Social Isolation also make the suspect feel more alone. Then police accuse the suspect of the crime, and they deny any of the suspects pleas that they are not guilty. This is when police might make evidence ploys, claiming they have evidence they don't actually have. Lastly police use exculpatory scenarios, this makes the suspect think the judge or jury are going to be more lenient with them. This is when the police place the blame on someone other than the suspect.

I find it surprising the police use techniques to make an innocent person confess to a crime they did not committ. This is what happened to Thomas Sawyer. It is impossible to know how many false confessions are made each year. 25 percent of wrongful convictions are based on false confessions. Police use the suspect's weaknesses and vulnerability against them in an interrogation. There are four types of false confession: Instramental-coerced false confessions (this is when the suspect confesses just to end the interrogation), instrumental-voluntary false confession (this is to protect someone else or for publicity), authenic-coerced false confession (suspect becomes persuaded they actually committed the crime) , and authentic-voluntary false confession (this is when the suspect has a mental illness).

Although police are allowed to lie about evidence, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act made it illegal to trick suspects or lie about evidence in hopes of getting a confession. Even with this in act false interrogations are still a problem. A few ways to reduce false confessions is to record the interrogation, put a time limit on the interrogation, give a youth suspect an "appropriate adult" during an interrogation, and provide an expert testimony about the confession or the interrogation process used to obtain the confession. By using all of these steps I believe it could reduce the number of false confessions.

The only part that really debunked what I thought about interrogations was that I never knew how much police coerced suspects in an interrogation to get a confession. I knew police tried intimidate suspects during interrogations by raising their voice or getting in there face. I was just surprised by the high number of false confessions each year. What I found interesting and wanted to learn more about was the appropriate adults assigned to vulnerable suspect, like a child, to be there while they are being interrogated. After looking over a website I found that even though appropriate adults do not intervene much in the police's interrogation, just their presence their helps the vulnerable suspect. It said appropriate adults have three effect. The first only helps with adults, but it said appropriate adults will help them increase their chances of asking for council. The second effect is that an appropriate adult present will help lower the interrogative pressure during questioning. The third effect is when there is an appropriate adult available the suspect's legal representative tries to take a more active role. Overall, I think appropriate adults are a good idea to be used when the suspect seems to be too vulnerable to go through the interrogation process alone.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/135532503322363022/abstract?systemMessage=Wiley+Online+Library+will+be+disrupted+3+Mar+from+10-13+GMT+for+monthly+maintenance

Summarize the chapter. Did you learn anything surprising? Were any of your own ideas about interrogations/confessions debunked by reading this chapter? What is something you want to learn more about? Search on that topic and report on some additional information about that topic. Provide any links to resources.

In the interrogations and confessions chapter, the different techniques on interrorgations are discussed as well as the types of confessions that can be made. The first discussion that comes up is how interrogation techniques have evolved. Police used to be allowed to use torture methods to get a confession, something that in 1931 came to the surface. Eventually, confessions that were forced upon suspects from police brutality were ruled inadmissible in court. The legal decisions that excluded physical abuse from being used in interrogations lead to police turning to psychological abuse. Things such as food or sleep deprivation, threats of violence, or promises of lenient sentences or immunity became popular. In 1966, the Miranda rights required police to inform all suspects of their legal rights.

Different interrorgation styles today include the good cop-bad cop tag team effort to make the suspect trust one officer while fearing the other, or the Reid technique, which is a step-by-step procedure used.

Unfortunately, even though we'd like to believe once a confession is produced that is the end of a case, that isn't always true. In 2010, the innocence project revealed that almost 25% of wrongful convictions stem from false confessions. These being instrumental-coerced, when after a long or intense interrogation the suspect finally confesses just to be done with it. An instrumental-voluntary, when the suspect knowingly implicates themselves so they can gain some sort of attention from the police or media. It may also be to protect the actual perpetrator that that person knows well and doesn't want to see get caught. Lastly there is authentic-coerced, which is when the person starts to convince themselves they may very well have commmitted this crime they're being accused of, even though they really are innocent.

There have been a few things set in place to solve this problem of false confessions. One method is video-taping interrogations so we can be sure the person was not coerced into confessing. Another idea that has been thrown around is having a time-limit on interrogations. Another is that juveniles should be provided with an adult during questioning since they are more likely than any suspect to not be completely aware of what is going on.

What surprised me the most was reading about the things that officers are allowed to do like lie to the suspect or create doubt in their head about them being able to get off even though evidence has already proved they did not do the crime. It would certainly make a person who really is innocent very nervous indeed, and I can see why a person should always have a lawyer present, since they could easily incriminate themselves otherwise. That is another thing I learned from this chapter that I before thought would automatically incriminate a person. Before, on TV shows and such, they always made asking for a lawyer look like that meant the person was guilty. Now, I see that it is a smart defense mechanism so you can escape being prosecuted for something you did not do.

This link talks about how police interrogations work today and the methods the police use inside the interview room that weren't mentioned in the book. Some neat layouts are even provided of how a room might be set up.
http://people.howstuffworks.com/police-interrogation1.htm

This next one I found interesting as well. It lists the most common lies officers will tell suspects to try to get them to talk.
http://www.lawcollective.org/article.php?id=55

I thought this last one was helpful because it breaks down everything about being arrested and what happens and tells you anything you would need to know if it should ever happen.
http://www.justia.com/criminal/docs/arrest-interrogation-faq.html

Chapter two discussed interrogations and confessions. The chapter opened up by discussing the power of a confession. Police prefer confessions to other types of evidence because confessions save time. If a confession is made, a trial can usually be avoided. If a suspect confesses to a crime, a majority of the time the jury will convict the person.

There has been an evolution of interrogation techniques. Prior to the 1930’s beatings were frequently used. I was really shocked by the methods that had been used at this time. The book describes that interrogators could burn the skin with cigarettes, twist a man’s testicles, or drag/lift a woman by her hair. A report was publicized that told of this treatment. Due to this report, methods changed to abuse that did not leave physical evidence. This included nearly drowning someone in a toilet, stacking phone books on someone’s head and hitting the pile with a nightstick, or have their faces pressed against a dead body at a morgue. Sleep deprivation was also a common method. Techniques changed once again to more psychological forms of coercion. These types of techniques include creating a fake lineup and tell the suspect that they had been chosen, or by telling them that a murder victim recovered enough to identify them.

Not surprisingly, interrogation techniques have led to a problem with false confessions. The book gives an example of a golf course groundskeeper whose memory is altered by an interrogation. By the end of the interrogation, he believes that he committed the crime, and he can incorporate details into his confession. It is impossible to know how many false confessions occur each year. Many people are convicted just because they confess to the crime. Vulnerability may be a reason that false confessions occur. If a suspect is vulnerable, the techniques may be too powerful for them to deny.

There are four types of false confessions. One is instrumental-coerced false confessions. This is the most common type. This occurs when suspects believe that the only way for the interrogation to end is to confess. Instrumental-voluntary false confessions occur when someone knows they did not commit the crime, but they admit to it to achieve a goal. Authentic-coerced false confessions are where the suspect becomes convinced that they may have committed the crime. Authentic-voluntary false confession is when someone suffering from delusions confesses to the crime.

Some suggestions were also suggested as potential solutions to false confessions. These solutions include video recording interrogations, placing time limits on interrogations, and using expert testimony in cases involving interrogations and confessions that are disputed.

The most surprising thing that I read involved the evolution of interrogation techniques. I found it incredible that these measures were taken to force someone to confess to a crime that they did or did not commit. I found a lot of psychology as I was reading this chapter. One of the most obvious and common types was social psychology. This is involved in the sense that an interrogation can lead someone can believe that they committed a crime that they really did not. One aspect that somewhat “debunked” my ideas prior to the reading was the complexity of the good cop bad cop technique. I assumed one cop was just overly nice and one was overly mean and rude. It was interesting to learn that there are basic influence strategies, as well as nine steps to the Reid technique interrogation. I found it really interesting that 80% of suspects waive their Miranda rights, so this is what I chose to learn more about.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/Why_People_Waive_Miranda.pdf
A study shows a variety of reasons for waiving one’s Miranda rights. One example is so the detective would not assume they were guilty because they would not comply to an interrogation. It is also done because the suspects feel that they are innocent and don’t have anything to hide or worry about. Suspects who did not have a prior criminal record were more likely to waive their rights than those who had been convicted before. The study showed that people who were innocent felt as though that was enough to get them through the interrogation.

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-rights/waiving-miranda-rights.html
This site says that before a suspect can waive their Miranda rights, they have to first be informed of their rights, and understanding them. If a suspect is choosing to waive their rights, they should state or sign something stating that they want to waive the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney present. This shows that the suspect is behaving in a way that shows they know and voluntarily waive their Miranda rights.

http://www.kanslaw.com/know-your-miranda-rights.html
When waiving one’s rights, any statement given to police at that time will be admitted into the case against you. There is certain information that must be given to police. If you say something about what has happened or confess to a crime if you haven’t been read the Miranda rights, they it usually cannot be used as evidence against you in a court of law. If the police can show that they would have been able to reach the same verdict through evidence in another way, they can use the statement.

Police have a job to apprehend criminals and get them convicted. While interrogation techniques have changed a lot over the years, police officers will still do anything within their means and the constrictions of the law to get a confession out of someone. Confessions are preferred types of evidence for many reasons. They speed up the process of gathering and analyzing other evidence and they help secure conviction.

Individuals respond differently under the pressure of interrogation. In attempts to get a confession out of a stubborn suspect, police used to use various types of physical violence. Since then, after government intervention, they then moved efforts over to the side of abuse that wouldn’t leave physical evidence and have since sophisticated techniques even more to include psychological persuasion.

Back in the early 1900s and before then, police used pure brute force and abuse in interrogations to get information. After 1931, however, they resorted to only abusing suspects in ways that would leave no trace such as forcing them to stand up for long hours at a time or having their face forced onto a dead body. Starting in 1961, any information achieved by means such as those previously listed became considered to be coercion and not usable at trial. In current times, a suspect or person taken into custody must be informed of his/her Miranda rights, or else anything they say cannot be used in trial. Juries may also sometimes be asked to consider the circumstances of the interrogation which led up to a confession to see if there was any coercion involved in the process. The approach of good cop/bad cop is used in interrogations along with the Reid technique, which is a nine step process to aid the steps of interrogation. As each step of the process proceeds, it seems as though the means for trying to get a confession become a bit more intense. Beginning with cops acting as though they understand that the suspect only committed the crime because they lost control, the process then advises leaving the suspect alone for awhile before escalating to the cops telling the suspect that they are sure of his/her guilt and before finally creating circumstances that would make the crime more acceptable such as self defense. The main problem with confessions is that people give false confessions often. In doing so, some people give a false confession to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of another person, or they simply succumbed to police pressure and influence and saw no other way out. Sometimes suspects may also begin to believe that they committed a crime because they were incapacitated at the time and though they may not remember it, the police set up the scenario in a way that makes complete sense.

The question of whether police should be allowed to lie is something that I think is a very heavy consideration with pros and cons on each end. Presenting or alluding to false evidence may lead a suspect to truthfully confess because he/she realizes that it’s over and the police have proof. Conversely, this may lead a suspect to falsely confess because he/she doesn’t know how to combat the police’s offense. In order to prevent or limit coercion, video recording can be a useful tool. It can be showed to juries to let them decide if a confession was coerced. The bad part about the video recording, however, is that the perspective of the camera along with the parts of the interrogation shown can mislead jurors and others who view it. It seems as though it would be very easy to doctor a recording at trial and only show what you wanted the jury to see. If this doesn't occur, sometimes investigators fail to record the confession until after the suspect has told it a few times and has the kinks in the story straightened out.

I think that limitations and guidelines for interrogations should constantly be reviewed and updated so that innocent people are protected from the harsher, less just side of the law. From everything we've read, it seems as though it could be fairly easy to accidentally damn yourself simply be saying a damaging statement because you foolishly waived your Miranda rights. While our justice system has come a long way, the constant improvements that need to be made will never be done and the system can never be perfect.

I was surprised that police are actually allowed to lie about evidence. I thought that this was something that only happened on t.v. shows and in movies when they exaggerate everything. I can understand why they might do it in some situations, but if it were me, I would freak out (presuming I was innocent). I can't even imaging the effect this would have on my psyche and ability to process information and respond to their claims. I could definitely see myself simply shutting down. The effects of this experience would probably haunt me forever. I had always imagined that being interrogated would be intense, but I never could have guessed how it can take such an extreme toll on someone psychologically that it leads them to confess to something they did not do.

I decided to learn more about the prevention of false confessions.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/sep06/confessions.aspx : This website reinforced a lot of what the books said about why false confessions occur. It focused a lot on people waving their Miranda rights often due to lack of intelligence and age. It also noted that 65% of kids in juvenile detention facilities have mental disorders and this is not always correctly recognized as a vulnerability.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/not_guilty/coerced_confessions/3.html : This site talks about how important it is to train police in proper interrogation techniques. I think this is equally important as it is with questioning eyewitnesses. I think police should be mandated to undergo training for both types of interrogation so as to not confuse the respective person being questioned. This site also reinforces the ideas behind taping interrogations, another thing that I think should be mandated to be done from the moment questioning begins.

Chapter 2 is about interrogations and how law enforcement officials use different styles of interrogations in different types of situations. It also discusses what cannot be done in the interrogation room as well. Well what cannot be done today in the interrogation room anyways like for instance beating a suspect for a confession or depriving them of food or drink for extended periods of time to get the results wanted. The different types of confessions discussed in the chapter are Voluntary, Coerced-compliant, and Coerced-internalized. The main thing that I picked up from the reading is if I am ever in an interrogation room, I will not be there without legal counsel.

The most surprising thing that I learned from this chapter is the amount of people that say the committed an act when the actually didn't! I guess I just thought if you were innocent that you (you being anyone) would do everything you could to prove it and never admit to anything that you weren't guilty of. I didn't know that law enforcement still tried to coerce people into making a confession this was very surprising to me because i am a criminology major and this is the first time that i have heard about it. This surprises me in the fact that i know if i were interrogating someone i wouldn't try to force a confession unless i was sure they were the one who committed the offense. Just for the simple reason that I wouldn't want to start back over from square one again when they are acquitted in the court of law.

One that that really interested me is that I thought that in today's world that all interrogations were video taped or had an audio recording. if this is true then before a case even gets to trial it should be able to be determined if the the confession given was coerced in anyway. So I'm going to look up the laws on recording interrogations and see what it has to says. After looking around I was able to find a website that pretty much states exactly what I stated earlier; it even gives some example of how lives could have been changed or should i say stay the same instead of incarcerated for a crime they did not commit.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/fix/False
Confessions.php

Chapter two covers interrogations and confessions. The chapter begins with the story of Trisha Meili. She was raped and beaten after being pulled off a jogging path in Central Park. They police quickly decided that a group of boys seen earlier in the park harassing people were the main suspects. Five out of the six boys interrogated admitted to the rape and beating of Trisha Meili. The biggest piece of incriminating evidence in this case was the confession of the boys. They were all convicted. More than a decade later, Matias Reyes admitted to raping Meili. DNA evidence exonerated the boys, as all of their confessions were false.
The chapter then turns toward the power of a confession. This chapter starts out with a statistic I found to be surprising. The book states "Somewhere between 39% and 48% of suspects make full confessions when interrogated by police and an additional 13% to 16% of suspects make damaging statements or partial admissions (Moston, Stephenson, & Williamson, 1992; Softley, 1980). Police officers estimate that they are able to elicit self incriminating statements for 68% of the suspects the interrogate (Kassin et al., 2007)" (Costanzo and Krauss 31). Confessions hold a lot of power in court. Confessions led to 73% conviction rate. They are considered to be the most incriminating type of evidence and have the most influence on verdicts. The book then moves to explain the effects of the fundamental attribution error.
The book now shifts to the evolution of interrogation techniques. Before 1930, physical abuse was a frequent way to obtain a confession. In 1931, The Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement was produced and sparked the attention helped pushed for a reform on the way to achieve confessions. After this report, police began using different ways to still physically abuse suspects without marks. Different forms of deprivations such as sleep, water, food and bathroom we now being introduced. Since 1961, confession obtained by coercion are usually inadmissible. In 1966, the Miranda Rights were introduced. Sadly, only about 20% of suspects in custody exercise their rights.
The next section covers that happens in the modern interrogation room. Today, police rely on psychological techniques to extract confessions. One common technique seen is the good cop-bad cop. Next the book describes the Reid technique, also know as the nine steps of interrogation. This strategy is based on four different strategies combined.
The next section is titled, "The Problem of False Confessions". This section begins by using the real life story of Thomas Sawyer. He was lied to by police, about the results of his polygraph test. They convinced him that his drinking problem could lead to an a blackout during the murder. The also said that a hair found on the victims body matched his. Saywer confessed to a crime he did not commit. Approximately 25% of wrongful convictions are due to false confessions. False confessions are the result of vulnerable people being subjected to the powerful influence tactics used in interrogation. There are several types of confessions. The books describes four types: instrumental-coerced false confessions, instrumental-voluntary false confession, authentic-coerced false confession, and authentic-voluntary false confession.
The book then turns toward the question: should interrogators be allowed to lie? This section talks about PACE or Police and Criminal Evidence Act. This mad it illegal to trick suspects or lie about evidence as a means of inducting suspects to confess in England.
Finally, the book shifts toward potential solutions to the problem of false confessions. It first starts by suggesting video recording of interrogations. It then moves to time limits on interrogations, followed by the "appropriate adult" safeguard for vulnerable suspects. Next it suggests Expert testimony and confessions.
Something I wanted to learn more about was the origin of the Miranda Rights. The origin is most directly traced to Ernesto Miranda. In Mirandav. Arizona 1963 was accused of kidnapping and rape, but the prosecuting attorneys used only his confession to convict him. Later it was decided that the police had used intimidation tactics to get a confession and if Miranda known his rights of counsel and self-incrimination the prosecution would not have been able to secure a conviction. Another case that led to the establishment of the Miranda Rights was Escobedo v. Illinois. In this case, it was established that suspects had right to counsel being present during police questioning or to consult with an attorney before being questioned by police if the police intend to use the answers against the suspect at a trial, or if the person being questioned is being detained and questioned against their will. In 1966, decided that all suspects need to be read their rights upon arrest.
http://www.resource4criminallaw.com/mirandarights.html
http://www.mirandawarning.org/historyofmirandawarning.html
http://crime.about.com/od/police/a/miranda_rights.htm

I was excited to read this chapter for two reasons. One, interrogations are probably the most dramatized parts of crime shows and movies besides the actual crime, and two, I was really curious to learn more about false confessions. In the opening story, I was expecting maybe one boy to have falsely confessed, so I was shocked when I read that all five had. It seems crazy to me that the boys could make up stories about how they did it when they all knew they were innocent. The details that Wise gave seemed so real.

The ultimate goal of interrogations is to get a confession out of a suspect. I was surprised by the percentage of interrogations that result in a confession. I guess I just always assumed that most cases involve a plea of not guilty, and go through the whole trial process, but that is obviously not the case. Confessions are the highest regarded piece of evidence, nothing trumps them. All the processes of a lengthy trial can be eliminated. Confession and conviction go almost hand in hand since the jury puts more weight on confessions than any other evidence. Once a confessions has been presented as evidence, it is hard for the jury to put that out of their mind, even given the details about how the confession was extracted- the fundamental attribution error.

The techniques used to interrogate have become more and more restricted over the years. Force, usually a guaranteed way to get something you want from someone, is now regulated heavily. I was sad to learn that it used to be very common to use beating and physical violence to get suspects to confess, especially if that suspect was innocent. Reading about some of the brutal methods they used, like dragging women by the hair, and twisting a man’s testicles was very shocking and made me wonder if some of those police officers were committing crimes themselves. After laws were made protecting the suspects in custody, police used even more bizarre approaches. The test states that most confessions can’t be used if it is attained wrongfully, so this makes me wonder why the police would bother with the brutality.

In addition to the physical violence, police also used psychological manipulation known as coercion. I was really surprised at the number of suspects utilize their Miranda rights. Judging by our discussion in class, it seems as though having an attorney present can make a huge difference in the case. A totality of circumstances test is used to judge how willingly a suspect gave up their confession. Police many different lies in order to get what they want. It seems ridiculous to me that police are allowed to manipulate a potentially innocent person’s mind like that.

Different methods are used to do the actual interrogation. This is where the police try and get inside the suspects head and break them down. One tactic is good cop-bad cop. Two different interrogators are used. One is sympathetic and friendly to the suspect and the other is harsh and mean, meant to rattle them up. The two work together in trying to lure a confession. I thought was kind of odd that the police prefer a certain type of chair in the interrogation room. The detail seems a bit superfluous. The Reid technique is used frequently. There are four different strategies to this technique; loss of control, social isolation, certainty of guilt, and exculpatory scenarios. I was shocked at how much control police like to have over the interrogations, down to the level of lighting. Social isolation seems like a given to me. No one else can be in the room during the process. With the certainty of guilt strategy, interrogators act as though they have no doubt in their mind that the suspect is guilty. It is here that they use the lies mentioned above. In exculpatory scenarios, s police try to convince the suspects that there is some possible way they could have committed the crime.

Even after our discussion in class today, I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around false confessions. I guess I like to think it would take a lot to make me admit to something I didn’t do, but then again, I have never been in that position. It does make sense that people with conditions such as social anxiety or schizophrenia are likely to be convinced by the police manipulating their thoughts. False confessions are the product coercion, abuse, fatigue, and trickery. It was interesting that the vast majority of wrongful convictions from a study were due to false confessions in murder cases.

There are four different types of false confessions. Instrumental-coerced is when a suspect just wants to get out of interrogation. This is the most common type, and often, confessors are consciously aware that they are in fact innocent. Instrumental-voluntary is when a suspect wants to be found guilty, even though they are innocent. They want to either protect someone else, or want attention for themselves. Authentic coerced is when the suspect is actually convinced, by the end of the interrogation, that they committed the crime. Authentic-voluntary is when the suspect confesses because of a mental illness or they are delusional.

Like I mentioned before, I think that police being allowed to lie about evidence and information in order to get a confession is wrong, but that is just my opinion. I believe that the Police and Criminal Evidence Act was a very good idea, banning manipulation and lying. It is a more just way of handling suspects in interrogation. I also like the fact that all interrogation are audio-recorded and reviewed by professionals and jurors. There are a few different ways to reduce false confessions including using video recordings. This way, jurors can really see the conditions under which the confession was given. Another way is putting a time limit on interrogations in order to avoid fatigue and loss of cognitive ability. Having an “appropriate adult” present for interrogations of children or people of low intelligence is also a solution. Lastly, expert testimony about interrogations and false confessions would help the jury be more educated on the subject, and then make their decision based on that knowledge.

The topic that I found most interesting about this chapter was the techniques that police use in interrogation. The website I found had a lot of the same information as the textbook, so I thought it was a pretty reliable source. I learned a lot about the way an interrogation room is set up to make the suspect uncomfortable and vulnerable. I found it interesting that suspects are supposed to be placed as far away from light switched and thermostats as possible in order to create a feeling of them not being in control.
http://people.howstuffworks.com/police-interrogation1.htm

The chapter starts off with a story that involved a women being rapped while on a jogging path. The police interrogated 5 boys for a day and a half and they ended up confessing to the crime. However, they were not guilty but were persuaded into a false confession. The actual rapist was Matias Reyes who was already serving time for four rapes and a murder. Reyes converted to a different religion which triggered him to change his ways and confess to the rape. I can't even imagine what the police said to the five boys in order to get them to a false confession. How could five boys be persuaded or scared into telling the police that they committed a crime that they obviously didn't commit and then serve from five to fifteen years in prison for it?

Reading this chapter made me surprised with how much weight a confession has on a case. Police prefer confessions over other forms of evidence. Confessions save time and resources that could be used on other cases. Also confessions help gather information that could lead to more evidence. Almost all people who confess plead guilty which puts them on a fast track to conviction. Confessions led to a conviction rate of 73% according to Brennan's research. Eye witness testimony which is the next strongest form of evidence has a conviction rate of 59%. People of a mock jury recognized that the high-pressure confession was coerced, and they reported that they disregarded the involuntary confession. Their verdicts however indicated otherwise: in the low-pressure condition, 62% of the jurors found the defendant guilty and in the high-pressure condition, 50% of the jurors voted guilty. In the no confession condition only 19% voted for conviction. This research just goes to show how interrogations could lead to false confessions.

It was very interesting to read about the evolution of interrogation techniques. Interrogation techniques have gone from physical violence known as "the third degree" to purely psychological means of coercion. Prior to the 1930, police used beatings and brutality to extract confessions. The many different forms of abuse used to gather confessions were: beating suspects with fists, gun grips, rubber hoses, and blackjacks. Interrogators also burned their suspects with cigarettes; used electric shocks; twisting of man's testicles; and dragging or lifting female subjects by their hair. Never knew interrogators were able to burn their suspects with cigarettes. What where the suspects granted after they were found innocent but received torture? Obviously interrogation is different now. Imagine how many false confessions were given back then due to the brutal torture they received while being interrogated. When my grandfather was a detective in his era he was the judge and jury when he witnesses or was attempted to stop a crime. He prevented a group of four guys from robbing a bank by clogging the getaway car's exhaust which caused the engine to stop. He then walked up to the driver's side door and shot all four of the men right then and there. He had to go to trial but since his era was different from today he had no problem with being screened as innocent. However today a detective could get in big trouble with the law if something like that would happen today. He also killed 19 people while on duty and his police chief who lived on the same street as him had 4 more kills then him. My grandfather's nick-name was "Two Gun T" His name was Anthony T. Bongiorno.

When I read The Problem of False Confessions portion of the chapter I couldn't help but to be angry. I couldn't believe the police officers asked Thomas Sawyer to participate in solving the crime only to eventually call him out and accuse him of committing the crime. Sawyer suffered from severe social anxiety, and when police questioned him he blushed, fidgeted, avoided eye contact, and began to sweat profusely. Although those seem to be signs of a guilty man the police officers should have asked people who know Sawyer how he acts and what his personality is like before tricking him into confessing. He was interrogated for 16 hours and eventually cracked and believed he was the killer. Which doesn't surprise me because someone who has severe social anxiety was probably overwhelmed by all the questioning and the negative atmosphere in the room. I felt that it was extremely wrong for them to do something like that to someone like Sawyer. 25% of known wrongful convictions involve false confessions. There were 125 proven false confessions mentioned in the chapter and 80% of them were murder cases, another 9% involved rape, and 3% involved arson. It's hard to think about how many false confession cases that haven't been proven wrong. According to the statistics there are people serving time in jail for something they haven't even done. The types of false confessions are: Instrumental-coerced false confessions, Instrumental-voluntary false confessions, authentic-coerced false confession and authentic-voluntary false confession.

This was an interesting chapter on how to distinguish between true and false confessions.

http://www.aele.org/false-confessions.pdf

This article includes research and various stories on false confessions.

http://www.fd.org/pdf_lib/Coerced%20False%20Confessions.pdf

This chapter begins with a story about 5 boys who falsely confessed to having committed a rape crime in the park. This story astonished me because of the fact one of the boys actually had a scene played out in his head in which he told the investigators about when none of them actually committed the crime. A different man committed the rape alone. I thought this was a very good story to lead into this chapter with. Next is the power of a confession. This explains the goal of questioning is to obtain a confession from the suspect in which the police officer is interrogating. I was very shocked when I read the statistic stating 68% of the suspects police officers interrogate give a self-incriminating statement. This portion of the chapter also explained how police officers prefer confessions to other sorts of evidence in order to save time. Once there is a confession, many doors are opened to help with the investigation such as the perpetrator telling police where additional evidence can be found. The most important aspect of obtaining a confession is the confession is the closest prosecutors can get to a guaranteed conviction. Another surprising incident I learned in this chapter is even if a person made a false confession, he or she may still be convicted because it is ultimately up to the jury to decided whether to the person will be convicted or not and the jurors have the confession locked in their brains whether they want to or not. I was very shocked by the fact police used physical abuse and brutality to receive confessions from people before 1930. If police burned my skin with cigarettes or lifted me up by my hair, etc, there is a good chance I may admit to a crime I did not commit in order to save myself from the police who are there essentially to protect my safety. As if this were not bad enough, the fact police would push my head into the toilet to the point of drowning would be suffering enough and I would not want to know how much worse it could get. The interrogation techniques from before 1930 were awful and hurtful to read. The Miranda rights have been a good inclusion into the process of arrest so people are aware of their rights, but only 20% of suspects in custody exercise these rights. Ever since psychological interrogations took place of brutal interrogations, there are new techniques to the process of interrogating. The bad cop-good cop approach persuades the suspect confess to the good cop once the bad cop is not present. The good cop is more nurturing and sympathetic as the bad cop shows anger and expresses the belief the suspect should obtain the most severe punishment. The Reid technique was interesting because it explains the procedure of interrogations. The strategies to influence confessions are 1. loss of control 2. social isolation 3. certainty of guilt 4. exculpatory scenarios. The first strategy shows the interrogator runs things in the situation compared to the suspect, Social isolation is exactly what it sounds like. The suspect is deprived of emotional support and is interrogated alone. Certainty of guilt is when the interrogator directly accuses the suspect of the crime. Police use evidence ploys (real or fake evidence) to establish guilt such as fingerprints, hair samples, etc. Exculpatory scenarios shift the blame from the suspect to someone else or the circumstances to make a judgment. The chapter then discusses the problem of false confessions. What surprised me from this part of the chapter was how some convictions still stand for those people who are exposed with false confessions. I find it crazy how a person can be influenced so dramatically that he or she can be convinced he or she committed a crime. Many times these people are vulnerable by being young, inexperienced, drug users, mentally ill or just scared. I also learned about different types of false confessions. I find authentic-coerced false confessions to be very interesting and very alarming at the same time. Like I stated before, it boggles my mind how a person can be convinced he or she committed the crime. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act came into effect in order to protect suspects from the lying or tricks police officers may use to get a confession from a suspect. I like how this act makes interview be audio recorded so the interrogations may be evaluated by the people involved in the trial to judge the circumstances of the confession. A problem that bothered me about recordings being used in the court room was that jurors often do not see recordings of interrogations in their entirety so there may be a lot left out that the jurors did not get to hear. Equal-focus camera perspectives enable the jurors to make better judgment of the conditions of the confession. I did not know interrogations last less than two hours, I thought they lasted longer than that.

As I stated in my analysis, many things debunked my thoughts of confessions and interrogations. I thought interrogations lasted longer than about two hours and I also thought interrogations had good mannerisms. I did not know there was so much lying and cruelty in the interrogation, especially when the jurors do not hear it being said by recorders. I also had no idea there were so many false confessions due to the interrogation process. I thought if they had the wrong person even though they confessed to the crime, they would be set free if the real perpetrator was caught but that is not the case.

Psychology relates to this in many ways. Cognitive psychology is evident in the usage of techniques to get inside of a suspect's head during an interrogation as well as how the suspect processes that information. The interrogators use this sort of psychology to persuade a person and get that person to actually believe he or she committed the crime, leading to different processes occurring in the suspect's head. Emotional psychology is also used in confessions and interrogations because the interrogator toys with the suspect's emotions and attempts to drain that person in order to reach the confession he or she is in search of.

I searched more information on the unfair interrogation techniques used by police:

http://knol.google.com/k/nomem-de-guerre/police-brutality-criminality-in/220y3s198z640/6#

This site above described police brutality to people. The people explained how it occurs often and is dismissed because the police have the upper hand, officer's word over a criminal's.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-5175353-504083.html

This is about a guy convicted of raping a woman he found on his way to school and being interrogated for 10 hours with no lawyer present. This boy was convicted and sentenced. The actual criminal was the girls boyfriend. This shows it is not always a fair interrogation.

Chapter two consumes information about interrogations and confessions. It starts off with a story about a girl who was beaten and raped in a park. Six boys were brought in to be questioned about the case until five of them confessed to the crime. After years in jail, the police discover that none of them committed the crime. The power of a confession is huge in a conviction. In many situations, the police would rather have a confession than evidence. Confessions can avoid trials and can almost guarantee a conviction on someone. Many studies have been done and confessions are usually almost always convicted verse evidence or other support.
Interrogation techniques have taken a turn since the years past. Later years, police were able to us force to get a suspect to admit to a crime. They used physical torture such as beatings and brutality. Many times these tortures had tricks that left no trace. Their abuse could also be in forms of deprivation, isolation and intimidation. However, now police use the Miranda warning in order to protect themselves from any accusations. Many people don’t realize the great importance of these warnings and sign away their rights. The innocent believe it will make them look guilty if they don’t do it and the guilty feel they it will make them look guilty if they don’t do it. In saying this, the police are still able to use tricks and lies in order to extract a conviction out of an individual.
One approach the police can use is the good cop, bad cop approach. This approach uses two police officers. One police officer pretends to be angry and lie to the suspect. The other officer uses clever tactics that use sympathy and concern for the suspect. Hopefully, the suspect then turns out a confession to the good cop in hopes the cop will help them out. Another way the police use their skills is through building a loss of control over the suspect. When the suspect is placed in a small room, they feel as if they have lost control of the situation. In turn, the suspect feels out of place and vulnerable. Social isolation is another tactic used. A suspect is usually investigated alone allowing them to feel helpless and have no support around. Another way to interrogate someone is using the certainty of guilt. The investigator reassures the person that they committed the crime. If the suspect starts to deny an accusation, the investigator cuts them off or dismisses the denials. Another strategy used is the evidence ploys. Evidence ploy uses evidence to suggest the suspect is guilty through that evidence. If there is no evidence against the suspect, the officer may lie or claim there is some. The last strategy that can be used is the exculpatory scenarios. This is using suggestive language to lessen the negative stigmas associated with the crime that is being suggested.
With these tactics, officers often receive false confessions. The suspect feels threatened or tricked into believe that they really did commit the crime. There are different types of confessions. First, instrumental-coerced false confessions happen when the suspect has endured a long, intensive interrogation. The second type is the instrumental-voluntary false confessions. These occur when the suspect feels they can achieve a goal such as a higher position in a gang if they confess to the conviction. They third type is authentic-coerced false confession. In this case, a suspect has been convinced that they committed the crime. Finally, the fourth type is authentic voluntary false confession which happens when someone who was suffering from delusions confesses to the crime.
There are a few ways that we can solve the problem of false confessions. One way is through video recording of interrogations. In this cans, jurors will be able to view the interrogations and decided form themselves if the confession was truly theirs or not. The best way to do this would be to use a equal-focus camera perspective that shows both the interrogator and the suspect. Another way is to limit the interrogations. This would eliminate the suspect confessing they did it out of tiredness and exhaustion. A third way is an appropriate adult safeguard. Often times youth are ones who end up confessing to crimes they did not do. This would allow an adult to be present who is trained in this situation.

I feel as though interrogations should be viewed by multiple people in order to eliminate false convictions. I found it surprising how police officers can lie and deceive a person in order to gain a confession. It would be tough to sit in a room with a police officer and defend yourself when they tell you there is evidence that links yourself to a crime. Average citizens do not know the rule about this and I feel like it is unfair to them.

I wanted to learn more about false confessions. I found it so interesting that people would confess to a crime and chose to spend years in prision. I looked up more information for statistic
http://www.fd.org/pdf_lib/Coerced%20False%20Confessions.pdf

Chapter 2 begins by discussing confessions. Confessions are pretty much the closest a prosecution attorney will get to convicting someone who admits to committing the crime. However, there is such a thing called, false confessions where people will confess when they never even committed or were near the crime. A judge can decide whether to dismiss a conviction if it can be proven to be coerced, but this doesn’t happen all that often. The plaintive may still be able to plead guilty, but 81% of the time, the jury still finds them to be guilty because they never had the knowledge that the confession all along was false. This usually happens due to how the plaintive acts in front of the jury, they may come across as nervous during the trial, so that might throw off the jury and make them believe just by the way they are acting out in this situation is how they handled it, once the crime was committed. One good thing that states are starting to do is have a requirement of taping the interrogation sessions. Psychology is taken out of these videos by having the suspect only be viewed by observers who didn’t consider the surrounding pressures as much as any of the other views. Equal-focused camera viewpoint really helps the jurors to be able to evaluate the coerciveness of the interrogation.

For confessions, there are four types of false ones. The first is instrumental-coerced, this is when a suspect has had a long day of being interrogated and they get convinced to just confess they did it, so the session can be over and done with for the day. The second type is instrumental-voluntary, this is when a suspect confesses to a crime, knowingly that they did not commit, to either seek attention, or to save someone else’s back. The third type is authentic-coerced which the subject believes for a small amount of time that they did indeed commit the crime because of more long and drilling interrogation sessions. The fourth and final type is authentic-voluntary, this is when a suspect might suffer from a mental illness that can create delusions for them, so they tend to confess rather quickly and easily to the crime.

When interrogating starts there are four simple influence of strategies that are used. The first one is loss of control where the atmosphere and conditions of the interrogation room loses objects that are familiar, breaking rules like telling them that the murder victim is still hanging on and it’s the suspects time to confess, so they can work out a deal, or by just talking to the suspect in a direct way to show them who has the power and who has no control at all. The second influence strategy is social isolation, here the suspect is alone so that they can’t gather outside information and social network support. Third is certainty of guilt, here you see the line, “You did it and we know it” speech they give to the suspect, basically they are using evidence ploys to get the suspects to confess. Then lastly is the exculpatory scenarios, here is where the suspect is told that the crime they may of committed is more acceptable in society, so this can be said or done by having the suspect shift their blame to someone else, or they did the crime in self-defense.

Interrogations started off as direct physical violence, then entered into physical torture, and today has settled in psychological means of coercion. Police began using their weapons, physically on suspects in order to get them to confess. Usually the suspects who were truly guilty resisted to confessing to the crime, so violence was accepted in dealing with them, so an confession could happen. Media got involved, and the process changed, but more so in the opposite way it should have. Marks that were left on the bodies were no longer aloud, but instead were able to force the suspects underneath water, basically drowning them, but they did not allow them food, isolated them from the world, and no bathroom uses were to be used during their processes. These kinds of torture I’d say would be linked with cognitive psychology because the poor minds of the suspects are getting more and more messed up and messed around with. Soon after all of these actions were happening, the Miranda Rights came about. The Miranda Rights describe and let the suspect have legal rights by telling them to remain silent, an attorney can be present and they can provide one if the suspect can’t get one, and then lastly are asked if they understand what was just read out loud to them. Cognitive psychology plays a role in all of this by being involved with the suspect’s mental environment when taken into custody and also when they are in the court proceedings.

The good cop-bad cop is one of the topics that interested me in finding out more information about because usually there is some type of show out there that starts out by sending the good cop into the interrogation room to calm down the suspect, and then boom after they are done the bad cop enters and starts nailing them to pieces to see if they can get any more information on the crime that was just committed. Behavioral psychology plays into this good cop-bad cop deal with all the personalities that the cops are able to act out, so they can come up with the confession to the crime.

I found it both to be interesting and shocking at the same time that a form of torture was to put the suspect’s head up to a dead body. That is disgusting beyond my knowledge. I looked up a site of drowning people in water, because I’ve always wanted a little more information on this subject, especially since the United States is kind of known to do that to outside country enemies.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/water-boarding.htm
Basically they are discussing waterboarding, and how some people believe it to be unconstitutional no matter how bad of a terror they are or were, and argue that this is not how interrogations should be done. They mention that the Busch administration was unjust and just mention how it really all began or at least came to be more in the light that this was going on.

Chapter two discusses Intterogations and Confessions; something that I am very familiar with. I am familiar with this because I used to work in a Psychology Law about false confessions at Iowa State University. I have also had a quite unfortunate personal experience with the police, in which they tried to get me to confess to them something I did not do. False confessions happen quite often and ruin the lives of innocent people. Sometimes, people who are innocent even receive the death penalty. The chapter begins with a story of a woman who was snatched up from central park while jogging. The woman was beaten and rape, which lead to the arrest of five boys aged 14-16. These five boys gave false confessions that landed them in jail for over a decade. In 2002, a man already serving time for rape admitted to raping the lady. Finally, justice would be served and the five boys were released from prison.

This is where we are left with the terrible realization that there are tons of innocent people sitting in jail. Some innocent people may even be sitting on death row, all because of false confessions.

Confessions can a huge impact when a case actually gets to trial. Juries place a huge amount of worth on confessions and they tend to sway their verdicts. Almost 45% of people interrogated by police make full confessions while being interrogated. Almost 15% of people make damaging statements while talking with police. For me, this is a clear indication that no one, where they are guilty or innocent, should talk to the police.

Many times, the police take the “good-cop, bad-cop” approach. This is a very useful technique also known as the Reid Technique. The Reid Technique has nine steps that are made in order to elicit a confession. These steps can make someone feel very uncomfortable. One cop acts super nice to the victim, while the other is extremely hostile. When the bad cop leaves, the suspect sometimes admits to the good cop because he has made the suspect feel so safe during the whole situation. Out of the whole chapter, this part was the part that surprised me the most. I knew that there was such thing as the good cop, bad cop technique, but I was unaware that it was an official technique that is used all around the nation. I knew that the police use it, but I just didn’t know that it was actually taught to them. I always sort of thought that the police used this technique whether they were allowed to or not. I believe this is a very good technique, and if it is used against the right people it can be very useful. Unfortunately for the police, some people are aware of this and do not give into the acting job.

People falsely confess for a variety of reasons. Some of those reasons include lengthy interrogations, lack of food, or lack of mental capacity (by a minor or mentally challenged person). This chapter has taught me that I should never talk to the police without an attorney present. I hope to god that I am never in this situation, but if it ever does occur, I will know the correct way to respond: “I’m sorry detective; I won’t be able to answer any questions today. Maybe while my attorney is present I’d be happy to talk.”
A few things I found interesting in this chapter that I would like to learn more about is coerced confessions. When do the police actually coerce someone?

Here is a link that I found about a famous coerced confession involving the murder of a twelve year old. The police coerced a confession from a man named Michael Crowe. He was interrogated for 27 hours over a 3 day period. He confessed to a crime that he did not commit. Later, TruTv explains that the real culprit was a 28 homeless man. Once again: Do NOT talk to the police without an attorney present. This was a typical case of a minor admitting to something they didn’t do.

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/not_guilty/coerced_confessions/6.html