It may seem implausible that someone would confess to a crime they did not commit, but it does happen, and the prevalence of such confessions occurs at a much higher rate in juvenile populations. Aggressive interrogation methods, like those used in the Reid Technique, lead to a greater probability of false confessions among juvenile subjects than if those techniques had not been used. (Insert statistical data here.) Before we examine what it is about this technique that prompts false confessions, we must first outline the process developed by John E. Reid & Associates nearly forty years ago.
Picture yourself as a twelve-year-old boy in 6th grade sitting in math class when the principal pulls you out of the classroom and leads you down the
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This should infuriate anyone with a child of their own, and offend the remainder of the population as it violates the most basic of ideals of fairness, justice, and presumptions of innocence. Take for example, Michael Crowe, who at age 14 was questioned relentlessly by detectives for 8+ hour sessions regarding the heinous murder of his sister. As is allowed and encouraged by the Reid technique, the interrogators told him that they found significant evidence linking him to the crime, falsely told him he failed the lie detector test, and, most horrific to consider, they told him that his parents never wanted to see him again. There are multiple cases that will be used to illustrate the reliability that arises for coerced …show more content…
This lack of development affects their comprehension of Miranda rights, increases their suggestibility, and predilection to submit to authority figures.
Unfortunately, law enforcement authorities typically do not receive any special training on interrogating juveniles or others with reduced mental capacities, in fact, they are trained to use the same coercive method of interrogation indiscriminately. Limited education for law enforcement regarding human development from a juvenile perspective has contributed to a pervasive culture of inadequate and ineffective interrogation that when used with the wrong audience, can have life-altering consequences.
While literature presented on Reid’s own website asserts that special care should be taken when interrogating juveniles and that the Reid Technique should be amended in such cases, their training seminars are inconsistent with this claim. A researcher who attended one of their four-day, 32-hour training sessions reports that the session focused solely on adult interrogations. In the 10-minute segment concentrated on youth, attendees were encouraged to use the same strategies as what was presented for adults. They further encourage the use of adult language with the juveniles. They also failed to point out or address any of the developmental issues that
Within the last five years, violent offenses by children have increased 68 percent, crimes such as: murder, rape, assault, and robbery. Honestly, with these figures, it is not surprising at all that the Juveniles Courts focus less on the children in danger, and focus more on dangerous children. This in fact is most likely the underlying reasoning behind juveniles being tried as adults by imposing harsher and stiffer sentences. However, these policies fail to recognize the developmental differences between young people and
As a result of Ford’s threatening interrogatories, the four suspects made a false confession, in which they stated that they committed the murder. The tight, dark room and the long time the interrogatories took made the four men subject to Ford’s psychological abuse and falsely confessed. Most of them said that they told him what he wanted to hear. The author Chapman (2013) argued that, “psychological research is applied to interrogation, the result can be that the officer already believes that the suspect committed the crime and is not likely to take no as an answer,” (p.162).
The quagmire of placing juveniles in adult facilities is the risk factors juveniles may experience while incarcerated. Being that juveniles are young and smaller to the adult offenders, they may be seen as a prey or easy target for rape, assault, mental issues which eventually leads to suicide. We must keep in mind that juveniles are youth meaning they are still a child, not an adult and should not be exposed to adult incarceration environment. Although it is cost saving to place juveniles and adults under one facility, it is unethical because they are not built and yet mentally ready and prepared to experience adult facilities. Alternative strategies are available to assist juvenile detainees such as healthcare, education, recreation, and work experience. The Juvenile Court Act of 1899 gave leniency to youth under the age of 16. Placing youth detainees with adult offenders will result in the reduction of rehabilitation services for youth, while increasing the rate of being a victim as a potential prey o...
Many of today’s interrogation models being utilized in police investigations have an impact on false confessions. The model that has been in the public eye recently is the social psychological process model of interrogation known as the “The Reid Technique.” There are two alternatives used by the police today to replace the Reid Technique, one is the PEACE Model and the other is Cognitive Interviewing. These methods are not interrogation techniques like Reid but interview processes.
False confessions are receiving more public attention now that people are speaking out about having to serve jail time for a crime they did not commit. 2015 was a year to remember for false confessions, starting in January when a man was released after serving 21 years in prison. The protocols that interrogators are trained to follow are dangerous because they allow investigators to have complete influence on innocent people to make false confessions. Most people believe that all interrogators are trained to use mental and physical abusive tactics because it appears in the media and news so often, therefore making it believable to blame them for false confessions. “Interrogation is derived from the Latin roots inter (in the presence of) and rogre (to ask).There are no nefarious connotations, elements of torture, or illegal activities associated with the action of interrogation”(Boetig).
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
Lyman, D. Michael; Criminal Investigation, The Art and Science; 3rd edition, 2002 Prentice Hall. Pgs. 188-200.
...expert testimony in assessing the reliability of disputed confessions. The reason people make false confessions is typically due to a combination of factors such as psychological vulnerabilities, nature of the custodial confinement and the police interviewing tactics. Standardized psychological tests have been devised in order to assess personality factors such as suggestibility and compliance that render some people more vulnerable than others but these should never bee looked at in isolation. Studies indicate that reported cases are only the ‘tip of the iceberg’. It appears that young people are particularly vulnerable and often make false confessions in order to protect others. It is not only people with learning disability or major mental illness´ that are susceptible to make false confessions; depending on the context, anybody can.
Thousands of kid criminals in the United States have been tried as adults and sent to prison (Equal Justice Initiative). The debate whether these kids should be tried as adults is a huge controversy. The decision to try them or to not try them as an adult can change their whole life. “Fourteen states have no minimum age for trying children as adults” (Equal Justice Initiative). Some people feel that children are too immature to fully understand the severity of their actions. People who are for kids to be tried as adults feel that if they are old enough to commit the crime, then they are old enough to understand what they are doing. There are people who feel that children should only be tried as adults depending on the crime.
Every day a child is called on to testify in a courtroom. Children who have to testify in open court are easily influenced by outside sources. This paper will show the reasons children should not be used as witnesses in a courtroom. I will show all the different influences that a child receives and prove them uncredible. The interview process can influence a child greatly. Ceci and Bruck (1995) found a study that shows that child witnesses may be questioned up to12 times during the course of an investigation. The questioning process can take up to a year and a half to be completed. Children are not capable of remembering exact details for that period. Their answers to questions will change each time he or she is asked. This is because they do not retain information in the same way as an adult. Most studies have shown that children start to lose their ability to recall an event accurately only 10 days after the original event has happened. Another factor in a child’s ability to recall an event is stress. A child can go into a shock stage and repress all memories of what has happened to them. These memories may not resurface for many years. This affects a child’s ability to identify the suspect in photo and live line-ups. The amount of stress a child goes through affects their ability to answer questions in an interview, if they cannot remember what has happened, how are they supposed to answer the myriad of questions the interviewer will ask them.
June/July 21-26. Eldelfonso, Edward. A. Law Enforcement and the Youth offenders: Juvenile Procedures. New York: Wiley, 1967. Hyde, Margaret O. & Co.
An ethical problem that exists in the field of criminal justice is the incarceration of juveniles. While juvenile incarceration has been decreasing over the past decade, it is still an ethical dilemma that many criminal justice professionals will come across. Juveniles’ brains are not fully developed, incarceration is used when not appropriate to fit the problem, and some populations are over-represented in the criminal justice system.
Roesch, R., & Rogers, B. (2011). The cambridge handbook of forensic psychology. Canadian Psychology, 52(3), 242-242-243.
The intellectual battle between police officers and suspects has been ongoing since laws were created. Who did it? Being one of the most popular questions around the globe. There is a multitude of different way to figure out who did it, but one of the most common, and often the only, piece of evidence and investigator can gather is a confession. To get these confessions investigators often use a harsh and aggressive method of interrogation known as the Reid technique. The Reid technique uses a multitude of morally questionable methods to gather a confession such as intimidation, telling the suspect that there is evidence placing them at the scene, and continually refusing to accept the denial of the suspect. These interrogations can also last
Juveniles mental issues and brain behavior is the full picture of their everyday lifestyles. In “Juveniles don’t