Reid Technique: The Correct Way
False confessions have always played a big part when it comes to flaws within the justice system. So many people are constantly found guilty, when in reality, they have done nothing wrong and are completely innocent. But a simple question remains. Why confess to a crime if you did not commit it? Many blame the Reid Technique. A technique used to question people who are thought to be guilty. But in fact the Reid Technique has been used for over 50 years, so if it does not work why are we using it? The Reid Technique is an ineffective way of interrogation if it is not done properly and the person conducting the interrogation does not oblige the strict steps. False confessions are extremely common. Many people confess to crimes they did not do in exchange for
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Obviously the Justice system finds it useful if they continue to use it for interrogating purposes. The Reid Technique is a specific technique and not a hard one to comprehend. There are nine steps to the Reid Technique and according to them “The investigator is meant to hammer on the suspect’s unquestionable guilt and emphasize the futility of denials in light of the damning evidence, while at the same tune offering sympathy and potential justifications that encourage the person to see confessing as more acceptable” (32). Evidence suggests that both of these approaches commonly referred to as minimization and maximization can contribute to false confession (32). The effects of these approaches are obvious. Benforado says, “ When minimization was used with students accused of cheating (“I’m sure you didn’t realize what a big deal it was”), the rate of false confessions tripled. When the interrogator added a subtle suggestion of leniency in exchange for confessing (“Things could probably be settled pretty quickly [with a signed confession]”), the rate increased seven fold”
Even if a suspect initially waives his rights, during an interrogation he can halt the process at any time by asking for a lawyer or taking back the waiver. The police, from that moment on, are not allowed to suggest that he or she reconsider (ncpa.org). Because of this, many people feel that this has had a harmful effect on law enforcement. Police have found it much more difficult to get a confession. According to the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the fraction of suspects questioned who confessed dropped from 49% to 14% in New York and from 48% to 29% in Pittsburg.
Calm acceptance of danger allows us to more easily assess the situation and see the options(Simon Sinek, p.1).” Tunnel vision is defined as “the single minded and overly narrow focus on an investigation or prosecutorial theory so as to unreasonably colour the evaluation of information received and one’s conduct in response to the information(Department of Justice, p.1).” Tunnel vision is the number one leading cause of wrongful convictions in Canada. A trial should be fair and unjust. The accused should be seen as an innocent men/women until proven guilty. Tunnel vision can occur when the police is under pressure to solve a case. In the Sophonow inquiry tunnel vision was a major factor why Sophonow got convicted. The police got a hint from unreliable eyewitnesses that Sophonow was the last person who talked to Barbara. The police submitted to tunnel vision at the early stage of the case, making them solely just focus on Sophonow as the killer. Since they were so focus on Sophonow they did not accept any other evidence or explanation that could have proved the he was innocent. The result of this put Sophonow behind bars and the real killer was never brought to justice. This trials was not fair for the accused and was not given the chance to be seen as an innocent person. Our Justice system has to be changed in order to prevent more wrongful convictions. Another case that ended up as a tragic wrongful conviction is the Morin Inquiry. Mr. Morin was
In “The Interview” by Douglas Starr, He talks about the different techniques they use when interrogating suspects to determine whether the suspect is lying. One technique they use is called the Reid Technique and that is when
Because police investigators are usually under pressure to arrest criminals and safeguard the community, they often make mistakes. Sometimes, detectives become convinced of a suspect 's guilt because of their criminal history or weak speculations. Once they are convinced, they are less likely to consider alternative possibilities. They overlook some important exculpatory evidence, make weak speculations and look only for links that connect a suspect to a crime, especially if the suspect has a previous criminal record. Picking Cotton provides an understanding of some common errors of the police investigation process. During Ronald Cottons interrogation, the detectives did not bother to record the conversation “But I noticed he wasn 't recording the conversation, so I felt that he could be writing anything down”(79) unlike they did for Jennifer. They had already labelled Ronald Cotton as the perpetrator and they told him during the interrogation “Cotton, Jennifer Thompson already identified you. We know it was you”(82). Jenifer Thompson 's testimony along with Ronald Cotton 's past criminal records gave the detectives more reason to believe Ronald committed the crime. Ronald Cotton stated “ This cop Sully, though, he had already decided I was guilty.”(84). Many investigative process have shortcomings and are breached because the officials in charge make
In order to incriminate Danial Williams, Joseph Dick, Eric Wilson, and Derek Tice with the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko, Detectives Maureen Evans and Robert Ford conducted long, grueling interrogation sessions using many provocative and manipulative tactics. Throughout this process, Ford and Evans coerced the suspects into renegotiating their perception of the crime until an entirely new reality was created. This new reality evolved as the police elicited additional confessionary evidence to account for each new piece of physical evidence from the crime scene. Eventually, in an iterative process that had police editing their theories of the crime and then forcing the suspects to claim this new reality as their own, the reconciled reality of the crime became one that was consistent with both the criminal evidence and the suspects’ new perception. An analysis of empirical m...
The act of interrogation has been around for thousands of years. From the Punic Wars to the war in Iraq, interrogating criminals, prisoners or military officers in order to receive advantageous information has been regularly used. These interrogation techniques can range from physical pain to emotional distress. Hitting an individual with a whip while they hang from a ceiling or excessively questioning them may seem like an ideal way to get them to reveal something, but in reality it is ineffective and . This is because even the most enduring individual can be made to admit anything under excruciating circumstances. In the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights there is a provision (“no person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself” ) which reflects a time-honored common principle that no person is bound to betray him or herself or can be forced to give incriminating evidence. This ideology of self-incrimination has been challenged heavily over the past s...
...igations today has a huge impact on false confessions. The Reid Technique is being criticized in the media because of its guilt-presumptive, aggressive, and psychologically manipulative nature. It is based on a series of assumptions that lack scientific support, and by using it they are creating hostile and coercive environment for the interrogation. The fact that they try to pass these confessions off as voluntary should also be an issue against using them since we know they are usually coerced. There are two alternatives to the Reid technique being used to interview suspects. These do not use coercion and manipulation to get confessions. The first is the PEACE Model, which is an interview technique that is more ethical, and the other technique is Cognitive interviewing which is used by police as a memory technique used to enhance the retrieval of their memory.
Depending on what study is read, the incidence of false confession is less than 35 per year, up to 600 per year. That is a significant variance in range, but no matter how it is evaluated or what numbers are calculated, the fact remains that false confessions are a reality. Why would an innocent person confess to a crime that she did not commit? Are personal factors, such as age, education, and mental state, the primary reason for a suspect to confess? Are law enforcement officers and their interrogation techniques to blame for eliciting false confessions? Regardless of the stimuli that lead to false confessions, society and the justice system need to find a solution to prevent the subsequent aftermath.
After reviewing the article “Inside Interrogation: The Lie, The Bluff, and False Confessions”, it became very evident the huge problem with interrogations and false confessions in the criminal justice system is with false confession. Jennifer T. Perillo and Saul M. Kassin crafted three distinct experiments to try and better understand false confessions and how trues the actual numbers in real life are. What Perillo and Kassin were trying to prove is that “the bluff technique should elicit confessions from perpetrators but not from innocents” (Perillo, Kassin 2010). What is called the “Bluff Technique” is an interrogation technique that uses a sort of threat or hint that there is certain proof that a person will think is more of a promise for
Garrett, B. L. (n.d.). The Substance of False Confessions. Criminal Justice Collection. Retrieved November 23, 2010, from find.galegroup.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/gtx/retrieve.do?contentSet=IAC-Documents&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28su%2CNone%2C28%29%22Wrongful+Convictions+%28Law%29%22%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28RE%2CNone%2C3%29ref%24&sgHitCo
Skolnick, J. H., & Leo, R. A. (1992, January 1). The ethics of deceptive interrogation. Criminal Justice Ethics, 11(1). Retrieved from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The ethics of deceptive interrogation.-a012396024
Among various arrests, people who are put in jail or prison due to their confession must make them a proven criminal, right? Unfortunately, not everybody who confesses to a crime is in fact guilty. A false confession is an act of confessing to a crime that the confessor didn’t commit. That creates a conflict involving the individual being accused and the trust towards police interrogation. For instance, after nearly eight years in prison, Nicole Harris sued eight Chicago police detectives, alleging that they coerced her confession (Meiser Para.2) The police detectives incorrectly informed Harris in failing “the polygraph test” indicating that she lied about not committing the murder of her son, Jaquari Dancy (Meiser). She felt that there was
It is believed that a false conviction is the result of an “honest mistake,”. One could disagree because wrongful convictions
The system has gone as deep as to making it so that even if a person has not committed a crime, but is being charged for it they can agree to a plea bargain, which makes it so even though the person did not do it the system is going to have them convicted of it anyway (Quigley 1). “As one young man told me ‘who wouldn’t rather do three years for a crime they didn’t commit than risk twenty-five years for a crime they didn’t do?” (Quigley 2). The criminal justice system has scared the majority of the population into believing that even though they did not commit a crime, they are convicted of it.
Mr. Duane also commented that police make mistakes, innocently, inadvertently or unintentionally with any statements they presented to the convicted, which is kind of linked up to his second and fifth reason, that there are no benefices in return to admit guilty even if that person is guilty or innocent. Police are human, if they can get any important information, whether the information is extensive or it is just a slip of the tongue, that significant detail can convict a person. Likewise, the police are willing to lie or they might just have faulty recollection of what actually happen when presenting a statement, nonetheless that is a way they could “crucify” the convicted. I believe the police are present to secure/guard the people and their