Using Methods For Interrogation Purposes

As a goal, this thought paper aims to provide a guideline for police investigators to establish a better system of interrogation as a way to avoid false confessions. However, and being honest, it is difficult to change a system that has been based on old doctrines and practices, also known as the popular saying "that 's the way it 's always been done.” But, as its opposite says, “just because something’s always been done that way, doesn’t mean it should continue to be done that way,” and a clear example of this problem is the use of methods for interrogation purposes. The fact that the Reid technique is still being used to train police on how interrogations are carried out should be a topic of concern. As the journal paper on the Social Psychology of False Confessions mentions, the processes that involve the Reid technique are based on a book -Criminal Interrogations and Confessions- that was written in 1962 ( Kassin, 2015) Although it is currently in its fifth edition, we cannot be certain that the methods used by investigators in 1962 are still effective in 2016. Additionally, we cannot rely on this process of interrogation to assess whether a person is innocent or guilty because there is the chance that these old procedures could incite people to plead guilty and hence provide false confessions. To an extent, it is unbelievable that given the literature and material available on this topic, there have not been any progress in trying to change the way in which investigators interrogate people. From 1962 on, new areas of study in criminal law have been created and developed. Therefore, a group of specialists, such as investigators, psychologists, lawyers, judges, and others, should create a manual on interrogation methods less ba...

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...ed fairly regardless her/his race, ethnicity or gender.

As already mentioned, this paper’s goal is to provide a guideline for investigators to reduce false confessions. Although different approaches as to why people decide to give false confessions have been considered, they are just a few out of a range of reasons that could influence a person’s decision on pleading guilty. I only discussed those related to methods of interrogation and biases. However, there are others that are also important because they deal with corruption, economic compensation, and social pressure. Indisputably, there is a lot of literature that can provide more information about this conflictive issue. Additionally, an interesting topic for further research would be to investigate if besides social factors there are some biological elements that could lead people to give false confessions.