The Reid Interview Technique

Reid technique
From Wikipedia, (quit smirking – this is a good overview)

The Reid technique is a method of questioning suspects that was developed in the 1950s in the United States by John E. Reid (d. 1982), an American consultant and polygraph expert who was a former Chicago police officer. Supporters argue that the Reid technique, a psychological method, is useful in extracting information from otherwise unwilling suspects. But critics have found that the technique can elicit an unacceptably high rate of false confessions from innocent people, especially juveniles.

Background
In 1955 in Lincoln, Nebraska, Reid helped gain a confession from a suspect (Darrel Parker) in his wife’s murder. This case established Reid’s reputation and popularized his technique. Parker recanted his confession the next day, but it was admitted to evidence at his trial. He was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. He was later determined to be innocent, after another man confessed and was found to have been the perpetrator. Parker sued the state for wrongful conviction; it paid him $500,000 in compensation.

With this success, Reid hired additional staff, setting up his company as John E. Reid and Associates. His company made “The Reid technique” a registered trademark. He published a text of the Reid Technique in 1962 and as of 2013, it was in its fifth printing. Reid died in 1982 but the company continued. In 2013 it was led by president Joseph Buckley, who had been hired by Reid. By that year this company “trained more interrogators than any other company in the world”, and Reid’s technique had been adopted by law enforcement agencies of many different types, especially influential in North America.

Process
The Reid technique consists of a three-phase process beginning with Fact Analysis, followed by the Behavior Analysis Interview (a non-accusatory interview designed to develop investigative and behavioral information), followed when appropriate by the Reid Nine Steps of Interrogation. According to process guidelines, individuals should be interrogated only when the information developed from the interview and investigation indicate that the subject is involved in the commission of the crime.

In the Reid technique, interrogation is an accusatory process, in which the investigator tells the suspect that the results of the investigation clearly indicate that they did commit the crime in question. The interrogation is in the form of a monologue presented by the investigator rather than a question and answer format. The demeanor of the investigator during the course of an interrogation is ideally understanding, patient, and non-demeaning. The Reid technique user’s goal is to make the suspect gradually more comfortable with telling the truth. This is accomplished by the investigator’s first imagining and then offering the suspect various psychological constructs as justification for their behavior.

For example, an admission of guilt might be prompted by the question, “Did you plan this out or did it just happen on the spur of the moment?” This is called an alternative question, which is based on an implicit assumption of guilt. The subject, of course, always has a third choice which is to deny any involvement at all. Critics regard this strategy as hazardous, arguing that it is subject to confirmation bias (likely to reinforce inaccurate beliefs or assumptions) and may lead to prematurely narrowing an investigation.

Nine steps of interrogation
The Reid technique’s nine steps of interrogation are:

1. Direct confrontation. Advise the suspect that the evidence has led the police to the individual as a suspect. Offer the person an early opportunity to explain why the offense took place.
2. Try to shift the blame away from the suspect to some other person or set of circumstances that prompted the suspect to commit the crime. That is, develop themes containing reasons that will psychologically justify or excuse the crime. Themes may be developed or changed to find one to which the accused is most responsive.
3. Try to minimize the frequency of suspect denials.
4. At this point, the accused will often give a reason why he or she did not or could not commit the crime. Try to use this to move towards the acknowledgement of what they did.
5. Reinforce sincerity to ensure that the suspect is receptive.
6. The suspect will become quieter and listen. Move the theme of the discussion toward offering alternatives. If the suspect cries at this point, infer guilt.
7. Pose the “alternative question”, giving two choices for what happened; one more socially acceptable than the other. The suspect is expected to choose the easier option but whichever alternative the suspect chooses, guilt is admitted. As stated above, there is always a third option which is to maintain that they did not commit the crime.
8. Lead the suspect to repeat the admission of guilt in front of witnesses and develop corroborating information to establish the validity of the confession.
9. Document the suspect’s admission or confession and have him or her prepare a recorded statement (audio, video or written).

Risk of false confession
Critics claim the technique too easily produces false confessions, especially with juveniles, with second-language speakers in their non-native language, and with people whose communication/language abilities are affected by mental disabilities, including reduced intellectual capacity.

“Of the three hundred and eleven people exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing, more than a quarter had given false confessions—including those convicted in such notorious cases as the Central Park Five.”

Several European countries prohibit some interrogation techniques that are acceptable in the United States, such as a law enforcement officer lying to a suspect about evidence, due to the perceived risk of false confessions and wrongful convictions that might result, particularly with juveniles. For example, §136a of the German Strafprozessordnung [de] (StPO, “code of criminal procedure”) bans the use of deception and intimidation in interrogations; the Reid method also conflicts with the German police’s obligation to adequately inform the suspect of their right to silence.

In Canada, Provincial Court Judge Mike Dinkel ruled in 2012 that “stripped to its bare essentials, the Reid technique is a guilt-presumptive, confrontational, psychologically manipulative procedure whose purpose is to extract a confession.”

In December 2013, an unredacted copy of the secret Federal Bureau of Investigation interrogation manual was discovered in the Library of Congress, available for public view. The manual confirmed American Civil Liberties Union concerns that FBI agents used the Reid technique in interrogations.

Abuses of interrogation methods include officers treating accused suspects aggressively and telling them lies about the amount of evidence proving their guilt. Such exaggerated claims of evidence, such as video or genetics, have the potential, when combined with such coercive tactics as threats of harm or promises of leniency, to cause innocent suspects to become psychologically overwhelmed. In 2003, an innocent man who repeated he was not guilty and was on a bus at the time the robbery in question occurred, successfully sued the Hamilton Police Service for coercion that resulted in a false confession by him.

In 2015, eight organizations including John E. Reid & Associates settled with Juan Rivera, who was wrongfully convicted of the 1992 rape and murder of 11-year-old Holly Staker. A number of pieces of evidence excluded Rivera, including DNA from the rape kit and the report from the electronic ankle monitor he was wearing at the time, as he awaited trial for a non-violent burglary. But, he falsely confessed to the Staker crimes after being interrogated by the police several days after taking two polygraph examinations at Reid and Associates. After his exoneration, Rivera filed a suit for false arrest and malicious prosecution. The case was settled out of court with John E. Reid & Associates paying $2 million.

Alternative models
The PEACE (Preparation and Planning, Engage and Explain, Account, Closure and Evaluate) model developed in Britain “encourages more of a dialogue between investigator and suspect”.

In 2015, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police adopted a new standard influenced by the PEACE model. Sgt. Darren Carr, who trains police with the new approach, described it as “less Kojak and more Dr. Phil”. This approach eschews the use of deceptive information to overwhelm suspects. It emphasizes information gathering over eliciting confessions, and discourages investigators from presuming a suspect’s guilt.

Reid technique is problematic
Jeffrey Manishen is a partner with Ross & McBride LLP
Law Times 11 Dec 2017

In 1998, a 25-year-old unsophisticated man in Alberta was arrested for aggravated assault on his infant son. After several hours of interrogation, during which time he repeatedly denied having hurt his son, he was left in the interview room. Sobbing, he wrote out an apology and made comments like, “How could I have done this?”

The investigating officers in M.J.S. [2000] A.J. No. 391 managed to overcome the suspect’s refusal to accept responsibility for the offence by the use of what is known as the Reid technique, an interrogation approach developed in the United States by John E. Reid & Associates.

The Reid technique instructs investigators to engage in “behaviour symptom analysis,” relying on patterns of conduct that supposedly indicate whether or not the suspect is telling the truth. The interrogation begins with the investigator asserting his absolute certainty of the suspect’s guilt. The suspect is relentlessly pushed to accept culpability.

• Moral justifications may be proffered (for example, that the suspect experienced abuse as a child, or that they inflicted the injuries unintentionally).
• The suspect may be confronted with exaggerated or fabricated evidence.
• They may be told that the proof of their guilt is incontrovertible, given that all other suspects had been cleared.
• The investigator may present two alternative versions of the suspect’s conduct, one of which is significantly worse than the other, and encourage the suspect to adopt the less serious model.
• A suspect who remains silent or continues to deny involvement may be faced with an investigator unwilling to accept that position, confronting him with the investigator’s theory of what “really” happened and endeavouring to overcome any reluctance to confess.

The trial judge was very critical of the methods used by the police on the suspect in the Alberta Provincial Court Criminal Division case, characterizing it as a “classic illustration of how slavish adherence to a technique can produce a coerced-compliant confession.” He ruled the evidence inadmissible.

He also wasn’t the first to reach such conclusions in assessing the impact of the Reid technique on the admissibility of evidence and was, by no means, the last.

In R. v. Thaher, 2016 ONCJ 113, Justice Peter Andras Schreck refused to admit a Reid-based confession by a mentally ill, fatigued man accused of attempted murder and questioned for more than seven hours. Referring to the Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Oickle, 2000 SCC 38, [2000] 2 S.C.R. 3, Schreck characterized the method as a “shoddy police practice … shown to be coercive and to produce false confessions.”

In R. v. Goro 2017 ONSC 1236, Halton and RCMP police officers executed a warrant for footprint impressions on a man under investigation for a cold-case murder. He was never told of his right to counsel, cautioned or told he was free to leave at any time. Rather, he was interrogated for almost six hours. In the face of lengthy police monologues insisting on his guilt, he denied culpability but some of his statements could have been contradicted by forensic evidence.

In the ruling, Justice Dale Fitzpatrick found it unnecessary to decide the Reid issue due to overriding Charter issues on detention. However, he stated, “[U]se of the Reid technique or something akin to it does not automatically render a statement inadmissible. . . However, the technique is inherently coercive and for that reason has been the subject of considerable judicial and academic criticism.”

One may wonder why some police services continue to use such questionable methods, given the risk of wrongful convictions, unsuccessful prosecutions and the attendant failure to investigate and apprehend the real perpetrators.

It can’t be for a lack of alternatives. The investigative interviewing approach involves a thorough and objective investigation of both the offence and the suspect. It is followed by an open-ended interview where the suspect is allowed to talk freely in response to open-ended, non-confrontational questions, which has proven to be very effective in gaining admissions that don’t involve the risk of false confessions.

One such technique, known as PEACE (preparation, engagement, accounting, closure and evaluation), involves officers asking follow-up questions based on the answers given as well as other information compiled by the investigators.

One need only watch the very skillful interview of Col. Russell Williams by Ontario Provincial Police detective Jim Smyth to see how a suspect may be engaged in non-confrontational dialogue, ultimately leading to false statements and a full confession to acts of murder.

Several countries in Europe and elsewhere have successfully implemented the investigative interviewing method. In the United States, Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates, a private agency involved in training police officers for many years, has discontinued teaching the Reid technique as a result of concerns over false confessions.

While several police services in Canada have incorporated the use of investigative interviewing methods such as PEACE into their training, many have not yet chosen to discourage or discontinue the use of the Reid technique.

Judicial commentary on the problematic aspects of this method of interrogation is going into its second decade.

I encourage members of the legal profession to add their voices to those who have urged our police services to cease utilizing the Reid technique once and for all. Let’s hope they’ll listen. Our justice system would certainly be better if they do.

Research on the Reid Technique

Accusatorial and information-gathering interrogation methods and their effects on true and Confession Evidence: Commonsense Myths and Misconceptions
Saul M. Kassin
Criminal Justice and Behavior (Oct. 1, 2008).
Abstract
Confession evidence is powerful but flawed, often in nonintuitive ways. Contradicting widely held beliefs, research reviewed in this article suggests the following: Despite special training in how to conduct interviews, police cannot distinguish better than the layperson whether suspects are lying or telling the truth. Suspects in custody routinely waive their self-protective rights to silence and to counsel—especially if they are innocent. Certain legal but deceptive interrogation tactics increase the risk that innocents will confess to crimes they did not commit. Judges and juries are easily fooled, unable to distinguish between true and false confessions. Appellate courts cannot be expected to reasonably determine whether the error of admitting a coerced confession at trial was harmless or prejudicial.

Arguments Against Use of the Reid Technique for Juvenile Interrogations
Buffie Brooke Merryman
Communication Law Review, 2010. Volume 10, Issue 2
Abstract:
This Article asserts the differences between juveniles and adults in the interrogation room rendering methods commonly used to question adult suspects improper for minors. Specifically, this Article criticizes the widespread use of the “Reid Technique” when interrogating juveniles, discusses the psychological consequences of that technique, and suggests alternative interrogation methods in order to safeguard juveniles before, during, and after questioning by police. Part I discusses cases and studies reflecting how courts view juvenile protection and explains why the unique characteristics of juveniles merit that protection in the interrogation room. Part II briefly outlines the nine steps of the Reid Technique of interrogation, discusses its use in police stations throughout the United States, and criticizes its application to juvenile interrogation. Finally, Part III highlights research discussing safeguards for minors in the interrogation room and then asserts that proper training is the key to overhauling the utility of the Reid Technique when questioning juveniles.

Questioning Suspects: A Comparative Perspective
David Dixon
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 2010. Volume: 26 issue: 4, page(s): 426-440
Abstract
This article contrasts the ways in which English-speaking jurisdictions have responded to concerns about practices in the police interrogation of suspects. Since the mid-1990s, a stark contrast has developed between the methods taught to North American police officers via the “Reid Technique” and similar U.S. training programs and the strategy of “investigative interviewing” in England and Wales (and increasingly elsewhere in Europe and Australasia). This policy divergence must be understood in the context of differing responses to miscarriages of justice and investigative failures (caused, at least in part, by inefficient interrogation techniques) and the knowledge which inquiries into these miscarriages and failures produced. While investigative interviewing is part of a response to criminal process failure which sees both wrongful convictions and failed prosecutions as problematic, the United States has been slow to acknowledge the scale of a problem which has not only convicted (and executed) the innocent, but also failed to bring the guilty to justice. Drawing on empirical research in Australia, where audio-visual recording has been used routinely since the early 1990s, the article notes the limits and benefits of electronic recording, which too often is presented as a panacea. The article notes that most discussion of American interrogation takes place in an empirical vacuum and expresses doubts about the prevalent accounts of police practice. It also notes some recent interest in the United States in alternative approaches to interrogating suspects which have developed from the experience of questioning terrorist suspects.

False confessions, police interrogation tactics, and the case of the messengers who almost killed the message.
Zelig, Mark
PsycCRITIQUES, Vol 56(1), 2011.
Reviewed Item:
Lassiter, G. Daniel (Ed); Meissner, Christian A. (Ed). (2010) Police interrogations and false confessions: Current research, practice, and policy recommendations Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. 237pp.
Abstract:
Reviews the book, Police interrogations and false confessions: Current research, practice, and policy recommendations edited by G. Daniel Lassiter and Christian A. Meissner (see record 2009-19611-000). Why do innocent people confess to crimes they didn’t commit? Lassiter and Meissner have assembled many of the world’s most renowned researchers to answer why some innocent people confess to serious criminal behavior. The authors accuse the disciples of the Reid technique of interrogation of planting the seeds of confirmatory bias by teaching erroneous information regarding surefire indicators of deception. Once the suspect is misclassified as deceptive, he or she is subjected to a barrage of psychologically coercive techniques, a component of the popular Reid workshops. If these techniques are applied to an at-risk suspect, a confession may result, even if the suspect was not criminally responsible. The review of scientific findings regarding the production of false confessions is very useful. However, an apparent lack of appreciation for the realities of police work diminishes this volume’s potency as a change agent. Despite my strong objections to the policy recommendations proposed by the editors and some of the contributors, I believe Police interrogations and false confessions: Current research, practice, and policy recommendations is a valuable research compendium on the topic of false confessions. This volume clearly answers why some people confess to a crime they never committed and why some police investigators make self-defeating errors that actually lead them further away from solving important crimes than when they began their investigation. This text is recommended for researchers, academicians, and practitioners in the field.

Inside Interrogation: The Lie, The Bluff, and False Confessions
Jennifer T. Perillo • Saul M. Kassin
Law of Human Behavior (2011). 35: 327-337.
Abstract
Using a less deceptive variant of the false evidence ploy, interrogators often use the bluff tactic, whereby they pretend to have evidence to be tested without further claiming that it necessarily implicates the suspect. Three experiments were conducted to assess the impact of the bluff on confession rates. Using the Kassin and Kiechel (Psychol Sci 7:125–128, 1996) computer crash paradigm, Experiment 1 indicated that bluffing increases false confessions comparable to the effect produced by the presentation of false evidence. Experiment 2 replicated the bluff effect and provided self-reports indicating that innocent participants saw the bluff as a promise of future exoneration which, paradoxically, made it easier to con- fess. Using a variant of the Russano et al. (Psychol Sci 16:481–486, 2005) cheating paradigm, Experiment 3 replicated the bluff effect on innocent suspects once again, though a ceiling effect was obtained in the guilty condition. Results suggest that the phenomenology of innocence can lead innocents to confess even in response to relatively benign interrogation tactics.

Justice Imperiled: False Confessions and the Reid Technique
Moore, Timothy and Fitzsimmons, Lindsay
Criminal Law Quarterly, 2011, Vol. 57 (4), 509-542.
Abstract:
There is widespread consensus that false confessions are one of the leading causes for wrongful convictions. Because confessions are statements against interest, they are regarded by the justice system as inherently reliable. Consequently, police,, prosecutors, judges, juries, and even defence counsel are predisposed to infer guilty, based on the confession. False confessions often result in the misdirection of resources, diminished public faith in the justice system, and the premature abandonment of an investigation that allows the actual culprit to remain free to commit additional crimes. This paper reviews the interrogation procedures currently in vogue in North America, describes inherent problems with it that compromise the reliability of admissions arising from it, and offers some suggestions for improvement.

Suspect Interviews and False Confessions
Gisli H. Gudjonsson and John Pearse
Current Directions in Psychological Science (2011).  20 (1), 33-37.
Abstract
In this article, we review two influential methods of police interviewing practice and their associations with false confessions. These are the Reid technique, which is commonly used by police forces in the United States, and the PEACE model, which is routinely used in the United Kingdom. Several authors have recently expressed concerns about the guilt-presumptive and confrontational aspects of the Reid technique and its association with false confessions and recommend that it be replaced by the PEACE model. Anecdotal case studies and DNA exonerations have shown that false confessions are more common than previously thought and are typically associated with two main causes: manipulative/coercive interrogation techniques and suspects’ vulnerabilities in interviews. The main challenge for the future is to develop interview techniques that maximize the number of noncoerced true confessions while minimizing the rate of false confessions. In the meantime, the electronic recording of police interviews, which provides invaluable transparency and accountability, is the single best protection against police-induced false confessions.

False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications for Reform
Saul M. Kassin
Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences (Oct. 1, 2014).
Abstract
In recent years, DNA exoneration cases have shed light on the problem of false confessions and the wrongful convictions that result. Drawing on basic psychological principles and methods, an extensive body of research has focused on the psychology of confessions. This article describes the processes of interrogation by which police assess whether a suspect is lying or telling the truth and the techniques used to elicit confessions from those deemed deceptive. The problem of false confessions emphasizes personal and situational factors that put innocent people at risk in the interrogation room. Turning from the causes of false confessions to their consequences, research shows that confession evidence can bias juries, judges, lay witnesses, and forensic examiners. Finally, empirically based proposals for the reform of policy and practice include a call for the mandatory video recording of interrogations, blind testing in forensic crime labs, and use of confession experts in court.

Going to the source: the “new” reid method and false confessions.
Alan Hirsh
Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, (2014) Vol 11:2, 803-826
Abstract:
The leading interrogation manual, setting forth what has come to be known as the “Reid Technique,” turned fifty in 2012.5 Just four years after its publication in 1962, this manual, published by the firm (Reid and Associates) that conducts the most widely attended training sessions for interrogators,6 attracted scathing commentary from the United States Supreme Court. In the seminal case of Miranda v. Arizona,7 the Court crafted its famous warning to criminal suspects in large part to protect against the psychological coercion at the heart of the Reid Technique.8 A year later, in 1967, Reid and Associates produced a second edition that incorporated Miranda warnings into its course of instruction, even as the authors brushed aside the Court’s criticism.9

1986 brought forth a third edition of the manual, “an entirely new book” responsive to developments in the law governing confessions and interrogations and to improvements in the “art of interrogation.”10 Though there would be refinements in subsequent editions, the 1986 manual set forth the essentials of the Reid Technique as we know it today. However, while expressing opposition to “any interrogation tactic or technique that is apt to make an innocent person confess,”11 the manual had little to say about the risk of false confessions.12 The omission was understandable, as this edition pre-dated the work of the Innocence Project, which awakened legal scholars and social scientists to the frequency of false confessions and spurred intense inquiry into their causes.

False confessions: a meta-analytic review
Christian A. Meissner & Allison D. Redlich & Stephen W. Michael & Jacqueline R. Evans & Catherine R. Camilletti & Sujeeta Bhatt & Susan Brandon
Journal of Experimental Criminology (28 June 2014). 10:459-486.
Abstract
Objectives:
We completed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the available empirical literature assessing the influence of accusatorial and information-gathering methods of interrogation in eliciting true and false confessions.
Methods
We conducted two separate meta-analyses. The first meta-analysis focused on observational field studies that assessed the association between certain interrogation methods and elicitation of a confession statement. The second meta-analysis focused on experimental, laboratory-based studies in which ground truth was known (i.e., a confession is factually true or false). We located 5 field studies and 12 experimental studies eligible for the meta-analyses. We coded outcomes from both study types and report mean effect sizes with 95 % confidence intervals. A random effects model was used for analysis of effect sizes. Moderator analyses were conducted when appropriate
Results
Field studies revealed that both information-gathering and accusatorial approaches were more likely to elicit a confession when compared with direct questioning methods. However, experimental studies revealed that the information-gathering approach preserved, and in some cases increased, the likelihood of true confessions, while simultaneously reducing the likelihood of false confessions. In contrast, the accusatorial approach increased both true and false confessions when compared with a direct questioning method.
Conclusions
The available data support the effectiveness of an information-gathering style of interviewing suspects. Caution is warranted, however, due to the small number of independent samples available for the analysis of both field and experimental studies. Additional research, including the use of quasi-experimental field studies, appears warranted.

The Social Psychology of False Confessions
Saul M. Kassin
Social Issues and Policy Review, January 2015. Vol. 9, Issue 1, pp. 25-51.
Abstract
Inspired by DNA exoneration cases and other wrongful convictions of innocent people who had confessed to crimes they did not commit and drawing from basic principles of social perception and social influence, a vast body of research has focused on the social psychology of confessions. In particular, this article describes laboratory and field studies on the “Milgramesque” processes of police interviewing an interrogation, the methods by which innocent people are judged deceptive and induced into confession, and the rippling effects of these confessions on judges, juries, lay and expert witnesses, and the truth‐seeking process itself. This article concludes with a discussion of social and policy implications—including a call for the mandatory video recording of entire interrogations, blind testing in forensic science labs, and the admissibility of confession experts in court.

Police Training in Interviewing and Interrogation Methods: A Comparison of Techniques Used with Adult and Juvenile Suspects
Hayley M. D. Cleary and Todd C. Warner
Law and Human Behavior, 2015. Vol. 40, No. 3, 270–284
Abstract:
Despite empirical progress in documenting and classifying various interrogation techniques, very little is known about how police are trained in interrogation methods, how frequently they use various tech- niques, and whether they employ techniques differentially with adult versus juvenile suspects. This study reports the nature and extent of formal (e.g., Reid Technique, PEACE, HUMINT) and informal interrogation training as well as self-reported technique usage in a diverse national sample (N = 340) of experienced American police officers. Officers were trained in a variety of different techniques ranging from comparatively benign pre-interrogation strategies (e.g., building rapport, observing body language or speech patterns) to more psychologically coercive techniques (e.g., blaming the victim, discouraging denials). Over half the sample reported being trained to use psychologically coercive techniques with both adults and juveniles. The majority (91%) receive informal, “on the job” interrogation training. Technique usage patterns indicate a spectrum of psychological intensity where information-gathering approaches were used most frequently and high-pressure tactics less frequently. Reid-trained officers (56%) were significantly more likely than officers without Reid training to use pre-interrogation and manipulation techniques. Across all analyses and techniques, usage patterns were identical for adult and juvenile suspects, suggesting that police interrogate youth in the same manner as adults. Overall, results suggest that training in specific interrogation methods is strongly associated with usage. Findings underscore the need for more law enforcement interrogation training in general, especially with juvenile suspects, and highlight the value of training as an avenue for reducing interrogation-induced miscarriages of justice.

Coercive interrogation of eyewitnesses can produce false accusations.
Loney, Danielle M., et.al.
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Vol 31(1), Mar, 2016. pp. 29-36.
Abstract:
In the current study we hypothesized—and found—that coercive interviewing increased the incidences of false accusations made by eyewitnesses. Fifty-nine university students participated in a laboratory study in participant-confederate pairs and were later interviewed about whether the confederate stole a research assistant’s cell phone. Participants interviewed using a Coercive Interview were significantly more likely to falsely accuse the confederate of stealing a cell phone than were participants interviewed using a non-coercive, Control Interview. Our findings raise questions regarding why participants gave false accusations and whether coercive methods could result in more accurate testimony from reluctant witnesses. We suggest the need for potential safeguards, such as the electronic recording of interviews of non-suspect witnesses to prevent or document the use of coercive methods.

Memory errors in police interviews: The bait question as a source of misinformation.
Crozier, William E., et.al.
Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Vol 6(3), Sep, 2017. pp. 260-273.
Abstract:
Bait questions—where an investigator questions a suspect about the existence of hypothetical evidence—are a widely employed interviewing tactic. We examined whether these bait questions are a vehicle for misinformation to enter a criminal case, leading mock jurors to misremember the evidence. Adapting the misinformation effect paradigm, participants read a police report describing several pieces of evidence, then watched a police interview including bait questions that provided misleading information about the collected evidence. In Studies 1 and 2, participants’ memory for evidence they were misled about was significantly less accurate than control evidence. Indeed, participants came to believe the hypothetical evidence proposed in the bait questions actually existed. In Studies 3 and 4, participants read warnings—varying in their specificity—about the misleading bait questions. These warnings were ineffective at mitigating the misinformation effect. Bait questions may, therefore, be a source of error in juror’s decision-making, leading to wrongful convictions.

The Right to Remain a Child: The Impermissibility of the Reid Technique in Juvenile Interrogations
Ariel Spierer
New York University Law Review, 2017. New York University School of Law.
Abstract:
Police interrogations in the United States are focused on one thing: getting a confes- sion from the suspect. The Reid Technique, a guilt-presumptive nine-step method and the most common interrogation technique in the country, is integral to fulfilling this goal. With guidance from the Reid Technique, interrogators use coercion and deceit to extract confessions—regardless of the costs. When used with juvenile sus- pects, this method becomes all the more problematic. The coercion and deception inherent in the Reid Technique, coupled with the recognized vulnerabilities and susceptibilities of children as a group, has led to an unacceptably high rate of false confessions among juvenile suspects. And, when a juvenile falsely confesses as the result of coercive interrogation tactics, society ultimately suffers a net loss.

In the Eighth Amendment context, the Supreme Court has recognized that children are different from adults and must be treated differently in various areas of the criminal justice system. The Court’s recent Eighth Amendment logic must now be extended to the Fifth Amendment context to require that juveniles be treated differ- ently in the interrogation room, as well. This Note suggests that the Reid Technique be categorically banned from juvenile interrogations through a constitutional ruling from the Court. Doing so would not foreclose juvenile interrogation; rather, a more cooperative and less coercive alternative could be utilized, such as the United Kingdom’s PEACE method. Nonetheless, only a categorical constitutional rule that prohibits the use of the Reid Technique in all juvenile interrogations will eliminate the heightened risk of juvenile false confessions and truly safeguard children’s Fifth Amendment rights.

A study of the perspectives of law students regarding false confessions and coercive interrogation tactics.
Avalle, Diana.
Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol 79(11-A)(E), 2018.
Abstract:
The purpose of this research is to address how coercive police interrogation tactics can lead to a phenomenon rising in social consciousness, false confessions, with specific attention paid to the most popular form of police interrogation tactics, the Reid Technique. This research surveyed current law students to understand their perspectives regarding perceived coercion of certain interrogation tactics and the likelihood that such coercive interrogation tactics would elicit a false confession. The researcher also set out to determine if providing the psychology behind coercive interrogation tactics, and how they may lead to false confessions is perceived as useful to law students, and how likely it is that they would utilize such information in their future practices. This research is a first of its kind in that no other research has examined false confessions as related to law students; the only research regarding surveying criminal justice professionals surveyed law enforcement professionals, the interrogators, themselves. Although, presumably, due to a low sample size no significance was determined for the intervention used, there are still practical applications for the results of the research conducted.

The Reid Interrogation Technique and False Confessions: A Time for Change.
Wyatt Kozinski
Seattle Journal for Social Justice (4-4-2018). Vol. 16, Issue 2, article 10, pp.301-345
Abstract:
But the Reid Method has come under sustained attack in recent years. According to the W-Z press release, “[a]pproximately 29% of DNA exonerations in the US since 1989 have involved false confessions to the crime. . . . Academics have chronicled the commonalities among these cases and found the suspect is often mentally or intellectually challenged, interviewed without an attorney or parent, interrogated for over three hours, or told information about the crime by the investigators.” While some of these practices are prescribed by the Reid Method, others are outside the protocol but, nevertheless, frequently employed by Reid-trained interrogators. This has generated a significant number of false confessions that have later resulted in exonerations, raising the concern that the Reid Method may be extracting confessions not merely from guilty people but from innocent ones as well.

Effects of interrogation style on believability of confessions.
Hernick, Stephanie.
Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering, Vol 79(10-B)(E), 2018.
Abstract:
This dissertation was designed to explore what impact interrogation styles had on the believability of a confession. The interrogation styles that were examined were the Reid technique that is the common interrogation style used in United States (U.S.) and the PEACE technique which is more commonly used in the United Kingdom (U.K.). The independent variable in this study was the interrogation style: coercive (Reid) and non-coercive (PEACE). There was one dependent variable: believability of the confession which was rated on a Likert scale. Participants were recruited through a link to Qualtrics. After being provided an informed consent, participants completed several self-report measures including a demographic questionnaire, and then read two vignettes in which they used a Likert scale to rate how coercive they perceived each interrogation style, and how believable they found each confession to be. In one condition they read an interrogation using the Reid technique and another they read an interrogation using the PEACE technique these vignettes were counterbalanced. Participants were then asked to share information about how they reached each of their ratings. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either the Reid technique or PEACE technique vignette first, and then received the second vignette. A Repeated-Measures T test was used to analyze the data. Data analysis showed that participants found the Reid interrogation technique used in the U.S. to be more coercive than the PEACE technique used in the U.K. and were less likely to believe the confession given in the Reid interrogation than the PEACE interrogation.

Confessions of a criminal psychopath: An analysis of the Robert Pickton cell-plant.
Reid, Sasha and Lee, Jooyoung.
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Vol 33(3), Sep, 2018. pp. 257-270.
Abstract:
Police interrogation methods have changed over time. While traditional techniques relied on violence and physical torture, modern techniques have shifted toward psychological coercion and manipulation. These techniques, most widely known as parts of The Reid Technique, have proven to be a powerful way to elicit confessions of guilt from suspected criminals. Authors of the Reid Technique claim that when applied correctly, their methods lead to significant increases in police confession rates. But, these techniques are not universally useful. In addition to eliciting false confessions, the Reid Technique has been less effective on psychopaths—who are self-centered, manipulative, and lack empathy. Psychopaths can be resistant to these methods, which rely on the interrogator’s ability to induce fear, anxiety, and feelings of remorse in the suspect. When confronted with a criminal psychopath, interrogators face unique challenges requiring a different approach to interrogation. To show this, we analyze the cell plant video of an undercover officer who obtained a serial murder confession from Robert Pickton by appealing to his narcissism. We conclude by offering a few additional strategies that can be used by investigators when interrogating psychopaths.

Assessing the diagnosticity of a persuasion-based and a dialogue-based interrogation approach.
Eastwood, Joseph, et.al.
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, Oct 20, 2020.
Abstract:
The current study assessed the relative propensity of a persuasion-based and a dialogue-based interrogation approach to generate true and false confessions (i.e., their diagnosticity). Following the Russano cheating paradigm, participants were first either induced or not induced to cheat on an experimental task to create innocent and guilty conditions. An experimenter, blind to the participants’ guilt or innocence, then attempted to generate a confession using a persuasion-based or a dialogue-based interrogation approach. Chi-square analyses showed that both interrogation approaches generated an equally high proportion of true confessions from guilty participants (95% for both approaches; p = 0.942) but that the persuasion-based approach generated substantially more false confessions from innocent participants than the dialogue-based approach (45% vs. 0%, respectively; p = 0.001). The dialogue-based approach’s clear advantage over the persuasion-based approach in this study adds to the call for law enforcement organizations to utilize dialogue-based approaches within real-world interrogations.