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Police Interrogations and False Confessions: Current Research, Practice, and Policy Recommendations
This book brings together a group of renowned scholars and practitioners in the fields of social psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, criminology, clinical-forensic psychology, and law to examine: interrogation tactics and the problem of false confessions; review of Supreme Court decisions regarding Miranda warnings and custodial interrogations; and new research on juvenile confessions and deception in interrogative interviews.
249 pages, Hardcover
First published March 15, 2010
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December 24, 2011
The first third of this book was excellent, engaging and interesting. The last third was slow, meandering and rough. They started with a great grasp of the topic and when it came to details, the wheels started coming off the bus.
The essential findings are: 1) most coercive methods aren't used, though psychological ones are deployed, but not the worst ones, 2) most interrogations lasting multiple hours are most suspect, 3) videotaping will solve most of the problem, 4) as long as it also captures the room beyond the accused's face.
There are so many problems with that analysis it's hard to know where to begin:
1- some interviews aren't 18 hours long
2- some people confess because of confabulation/stress
3- vulnerable populations have all sorts of other issues
4- cultural expectations about authority figures factors into the analysis, either through irrational fear, or irrational compliance
5- the appearance of the accused as a person being interviewed and accused has an immediate effect. This is the reason people dress up for their trials, so they don't look like a criminal.
These things weren't foreign to the authors, they briefly mentioned, in perhaps one paragraph, each of those topics. They refrained from exploring those topics, instead focusing on the more extreme examples. It was an artificial limiting of the topic, and stymied a thorough discussion.
I liked the topic, and the first third of the book, but the editorial choices and topic selection in the rest hurt the rest.
The essential findings are: 1) most coercive methods aren't used, though psychological ones are deployed, but not the worst ones, 2) most interrogations lasting multiple hours are most suspect, 3) videotaping will solve most of the problem, 4) as long as it also captures the room beyond the accused's face.
There are so many problems with that analysis it's hard to know where to begin:
1- some interviews aren't 18 hours long
2- some people confess because of confabulation/stress
3- vulnerable populations have all sorts of other issues
4- cultural expectations about authority figures factors into the analysis, either through irrational fear, or irrational compliance
5- the appearance of the accused as a person being interviewed and accused has an immediate effect. This is the reason people dress up for their trials, so they don't look like a criminal.
These things weren't foreign to the authors, they briefly mentioned, in perhaps one paragraph, each of those topics. They refrained from exploring those topics, instead focusing on the more extreme examples. It was an artificial limiting of the topic, and stymied a thorough discussion.
I liked the topic, and the first third of the book, but the editorial choices and topic selection in the rest hurt the rest.
Displaying 1 of 1 review