Police Psychology

Dr. Tushar Singh

Interrogations/ Interviews
Definition: The exploration and resolution of
issues, not necessarily the gaining of a written
or oral confession.
 Location of physical evidence.
 The presence of accomplices.
 Other details of the crime or related crimes.

The reality.
Gain information useful in the attainment of the
immediate goal.
Interrogation v. Interview
The role of the Psychologist
Evaluator
Procedures used in police interrogations
Educator
Police
General Public
Expert Witness
Author of an amicus brief
What is allowable in this process?
 Legally permissible interrogation tactics.
1. Misrepresentation of the facts.
2. The use of techniques that take unfair advantage of
the emotions, beliefs, or medical condition of the
defendant.
3. Failure to inform the suspect of some important fact
or circumstance that might make the suspect less
likely to confess.
 The Goals of Law-enforcement.
Misrepresentation of the Facts
 An accomplice/other suspect has named him/her as the
primary perpetrator.
 Informing the suspect that family has confessed.
 Subjecting the suspect to a staged identification
procedure (line-up).
 Informing the suspect that the victim of a murder is still
alive.
The use of techniques that take unfair
advantage of the emotions, beliefs, or
medical condition of the defendant.

Feigning support, sympathy, or concern (good cop).

Playing on superstitions.
Promising secrecy or confidentiality.
Telling the suspect that not confessing could have
repercussions on the police officer or on the suspect’s
family.
Failure to inform the suspect of some
important fact or circumstance that might
make the suspect less likely to confess.
Failing to inform the suspect that an
attorney has called and inquired into
their case.
Pretending that evidence favorable to
the defendant is non-existent.
Manipulative Tactics
1. Minimization – “soft sell”
 Techniques in which sympathy, face-saving excuses
or moral justifications are offered by the
interrogator.
2. Maximization – “scare tactics”
 Exaggerating the seriousness of offense and
magnitude of the charges.
 Knowledge-Bluff – Possession of evidence or insight
regarding the suspect’s guilt.
 Baiting questions – implies the police already know the
answer.
3. Rapport Building – “emotional appeal”
 Mutt and Jeff – “Good-cop, Bad cop”
Tactics that are illegal
Promises, Threats, & Lies?
Physical or psychological coercion
 Physical force
 Abuse
 Torture
 Threats (even implicit ones) of harm or punishment
 Prolonged isolation or deprivation (food and sleep)
 Unfounded promises of leniency
 Certain types of psychological manipulation
Why are not all deceitful tactics excluded?

Justice Thurgood Marshall

Martin E. Frazier decision (1969)
“The fact that the police misrepresented the statements
that Rawls had made is, while relevant, insufficient in
our view to make this otherwise voluntary confession,
inadmissible.”

Innocents don’t confess!

Psychological Interrogation
Repeatedly accusing the suspect of a
crime
Repeatedly attacking the suspect’s
alibi
Repeatedly interrupting the suspect’s
denials
The lie detector test
Exaggerating/lying about evidence
Providing moral justifications/face
saving alternatives
The Myth of Psychological Interrogation:
Innocent people do not confess…
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the general
public believes that the use of psychology is not
sufficiently coercive to elicit a false confession.
It is highly counter intuitive to believe that
someone would confess to a crime they did not
commit outside of the bounds of physical
coercion, as doing so is in such obvious violation
of self-interest.
The Importance of Confessions
Confession – An admission of guilt.

Why so important?

“No other class of evidence is so profoundly

prejudicial… Triers of fact accord confessions such
heavy weight in their determinations that the
introduction of a confession makes the other aspects
of a trial in court superfluous, and the real trial, for all
practical purposes, occurs when the confession is
obtained.” (Colorado v. Connelly, 1986, p. 182).
False Confessions Do Occur…
Archival analyses identify false confession cases
Leo and Ofshe (1998) identified 60
Drizin and Leo (2004) identified 125
Researchers have produced false confessions in
the laboratory
Kassin and Kiechel (1996)
Russano, Meissner, Narchet, and Kassin (2005)
…and they are damning evidence
The mere presence of a confession drastically
increases the likelihood of conviction (Kassin
& Sukel, 1997) .
Confession evidence returns higher conviction
rates than either eyewitness testimony or
character testimony (Kassin & Neumann, 1997).
Studies have estimated that a false confessor
faces a 78-85% risk of being wrongfully
convicted if the case is not dismissed prior to
trial (Leo & Ofshe, 1998; Drizin & Leo, 2004).
How do we protect the wrongfully accused
from their false confession?
Improved police training and education on the
phenomenon of false confessions
Mandatory electronic recording of interrogations
and confessions to provide an objective record
Changing the law to require confessions to meet a
standard of reliability prior to admission
Expert witness testimony to educate
judge and jury on the coerciveness of
police interrogation and the possibility
of the elicitation of false confessions
FORENSIC INTERVIEW
FORENSIC – Pertaining to, connected with, or
used in courts of law

INTERVIEW – A formal meeting in which a

person or persons question, consult, or
evaluate another individual

FORENSIC INTERVIEW – When information

obtained from the interview is to be applied
or used for questions of law, especially in
court proceedings
Forensic Interviewing
of Children
Therapeutic vs. Forensic
Therapeutic – The Child Forensic – The Case
1. Assumes child is telling 1. Fact finding
the truth
2. Interviewer is an advocate 2. Interviewer is neutral
3. Subjective reality is
accepted
3. Alternatives are
4. Accepting of general explored
descriptions of abuse
4. Details are imperative
5. Info can be obtained
using multiple
techniques: ex: “what 5. Interviewer follows set
ifs,” play-therapy, etc guidelines: ex:
RATAC
Child interview protocol
R.A.T.A.C.
Rapport Building
Anotomy
Touch
Abuse Inquiry
Closure
RAPPORT BUILDING
Making the child comfortable
Rapport & explaining “the rules”
 Don’t shift to abuse enquiry too quickly
 Interview child alone

Know child’s attention span

 Generally, 3-5minutes per year old
 Ex: 4 yr old = 12-20 minutes

The child is NOT legally trained

 This is not Judge Judy or L&O
 The child is NOT going to jail
Interviewer introduces self to
child
Ask child what name s/he prefers
to be called
Explanation of interviewer’s job
Explanation of videotaping process
Interview observation explained
The Rules
The rules that apply here
in this room, today –
The Big 5 of Interviewing
Asking for clarification because s/he did not
understand what was said
Saying that s/he does not know/remember
the answer (if s/he doesn’t)
Correcting the other speaker is OK
Never guessing!!!
Asking the question twice does NOT mean
the child got it “wrong” the first time
Why this is CRUCIAL!!!!!
Topics for Rapport Building
Family constellation, pets,
friends, etc…
Assess child’s expressive and
receptive language skills
Trial consequences
Use many open-ended questions
 Types of Questions
 Open-ended
to Ask Children
 Does not assume an event or experience
 “Tell me about it”

 Focused
 Focuses on a particular topic, place, or person, but
refrains from providing information
 “wh”, multiple choice, and yes/no questions
 “Or anything else”

 Leading
 Clearly indicates the answer desired

 Always pair a leading question with an open-ended

question
R.A.T.A.C. Protocol Phases
A – Anatomy
What do you call this?
 From this point forward, we use the child’s word
 What if the child doesn’t to name “it”

BE AWARE – younger kids can point to a part of

the body, but not necessarily give it a name
 Possible use of an anatomical diagram
Some body parts come sooner (ex: face, eyes,
mouth, nose, ears)
Others (ex: lips, ankles, elbows, wrists) after 6
R.A.T.A.C. Protocol Phases
T – Touch Inquiry
Has anyone ever touched you in a way you didn’t
like; made you feel bad/sad/mad; embarrassed?
A – Abuse Inquiry
Tell me about that
BE AWARE – bare bones statement may be all
that’s given spontaneously, since younger kids
think you (interviewer & all adults) know what
happened
R.A.T.A.C. Protocol Phases
A – Abuse Inquiry

DO NOT INTERRUPT A NARRATIVE!

Go back to questions later
Disrupts child’s statement flow
Hinders the recall process
Interferes with accuracy
R.A.T.A.C. Protocol Phases
A – Abuse Inquiry

May have to prompt (non-leading)

Tell me more about that
What did you do then?
What happened next
R.A.T.A.C. Protocol Phases
C – Closure
Anything I haven’t asked about that you want to
tell me or think is important
What would you do if someone tried to do/did
this again
Do YOU have any questions?
Try to return to rapport building at this point
Facts to be remembered for child interview

Child Development
Kids cognitively unable to expand their
reasoning to incorporate the more general
meaning of a word.
Younger children will often interpret a
question or command in the most narrow and
literal sense.
Quick Word on Child Development
“Where do you live?” = “in an apartment”
 Vs listing a specific city/town or street
 this is literally where that child lives

If then asked “When you were at home, did anything

bad happen?
 May respond “no” to the entire question, because not at
“home”
 Cannot expand her understanding to include “home” as a
general term for residence
Every prosecutor’s nightmare
 Do you see the man who hurt you in the courtroom?
Quick Word on Child Development
Will have great difficulty explaining their own
thinking or feelings
Ex: Why are you sad?
Ex: Why didn’t you run?
Ex: Why didn’t you tell?

Asking “Why” before 8-10 is usually useless

Kids are “pre-logical” till then
Hypotheticals will yield “I don’t know” until @
12 yoa
Words like If & then, would and could
 The Truth About Kids & Lies
Prior to @ age 7 kids cannot create elaborate
fabrications.
To do this they would have to be aware of the
listener’s perspective.
They still cannot understand that the listener
has a different perspective than they do.
Quick Word on Child Development
Kids under 10 are syncretic
Fuse separate incidents into one event
Many incidents may be described as if they are one

Kids under 10 experience centration

Child focuses on one aspect of a situation to the
exclusion of all others
May give amazing detail about something trivial
(ex: what the car looked like, what was on TV, etc…),
but be unable to describe in detail the abuse
 Quick Word on Trauma
Know the Dynamics of Trauma
Type of abuse;
ID of abuser (closer=worse);
Duration (ex: incest in SA usually occurs for 3
years before disclosure);
Extent (penetration usually worst);
Age at which child was abused.
 Trauma
Know the dynamics of Trauma
First reactions of other
Secrecy (makes it worse)
Personality structure of the particular child
(robustness)
Choose Your Words Carefully
 Touch
Touch is with hands
Child may deny being touched when s/he was
penetrated
 Particular Words
“Know”
To know someone is to be their friend
Child may deny “knowing” the perpetrator, even
if he’s a friend of the family
Mom/Dad “knows” the perp
 Clothes
“Clothes” “Clothes”
Clothes are outer  Did he take off his
wear vs. panties, clothes?
which are  No
underwear  Did he take off his
“He took off my pants?
clothes”  Yes
 Clothes may be, literally,
Later “moved my
all his clothes, not only
panties to the side” article of clothing
NOT  “Underextension” – give
INCONSISTENT a word only part of its
adult meaning
 NOT INCONSISTENT
More Word Choices
Naked
Children may describe someone as naked if
their genitals are exposed, even if they have all
their clothes on
Sex/rape
Children use these words to describe any sexual
interaction, not necessarily only a penetrative
act
EX: the 4 year old who comes home and says “I
had sex today”
More Word Choices
Be naughty/do naughty things
When used to refer to abusive acts (“Did he do
naughty things to you?”), naughty may be
interpreted as referring to the child’s behaviour
(from the child’s perspective)
Play with
When the child is asked “did he play with you?,”
while adult is referring to abuse, child is
interpreting this literally, as playing games
And finally…
The dread preposition
In vs. on vs. against
In may mean penetration, or it may mean between
the legs
Young children may not conceptualize their inner
anatomy
A Brief Word on Suggestibility
By 10, no more suggestible than adults
You must know the research to defend against
these allegations
EX: what was the age of the children in the study
vs. the child in this case?
And all studies deal with kids denying
something happened vs. asserting something
happened
Language
Exploitation/abuse has its own language
To change the child’s vocabulary could result in:
 the perception that the interviewer is judging the victim
 the victim may feel that what s/he is saying is “wrong”
Language
Avoid use of legal terms, e.g. defendant,
accused
Avoid use of technical terms, e.g.
ejaculation
Avoid use of multisyllabic/big words, e.g.
preceding, accompany, incident
Avoid use of words with more than one
meaning e.g. play
Avoid abstract terms e.g. justice, truth
Particularly with the under 10s
Do not assume that because a child uses a word,
she knows what it means
“They’re sexy”

Do not assume that both of you mean the same

thing
“He tickled me”
Avoid the use of relationship words. Use
names (Johan) instead of “your uncle”, etc.
What if child calls someone Uncle, like the bus
driver and doesn’t know a name
Avoid pronouns – he, she, they, etc…
Until 10 kids have difficulty linking pronouns to
reference noun
Avoid negative constructions like, “Mom
wasn’t home, was she?”
Avoid “some” “all” “more” “less” with under 7s
Avoid the use of quantifiers, e.g. “a couple,”
“several,” “few”
“Once or more than once”
“A million times”
Avoid DUR (do you remember) questions
Under 9 “remember” may mean at one time you’d
forgotten
Not “Do you remember telling the police?”
Just ask “Did you tell the police?”

Avoid shifting back and forth between

topics without signaling to the child

Avoid shifting back and forth in time

without signaling to the child
Try to link events to something important to the
child
Prior to 9 usually poor with time concepts
Avoid asking for units of measurements – e.g.
size, distance
Big vs. small, child uses self as the measure
Avoid asking for estimates of elapsed time
Avoid ending with a question – “He told you
not to tell, didn’t he?”
Avoid negative stereotypes
Think age/development when asking
questions

Ask one question at a time

Allow the child time to formulate an answer

before rephrasing question
Silence is not the enemy
 Talking to

Kids
Developmentally Sensitive
Age-Inappropriate Language
Language
Long, Complex Sentences:
Several Short Sentences:
When you were with your Uncle in the bedroom of the blue
house your Mom took you to, what Where
did he dodid
to your
you?Mom take you
that day?
Who was there?
What room were you in?
What happened?
 Talking To Children
Age-Inappropriate Developmentally
Language Sensitive
Language
Passive Voice: Active Voice:
Were you touched by him? Did Anton
touch you?
Did you put your mouth Did Anton put his
on his penis? penis in your
mouth?
Confusing Pronouns: Clear Use Of
Names:
What did he do with them? What did
Jaco do with Marie and
 Talking to Kids
Double Negative Single Negatives
Didn’t your Mom tell Did your Mom tell you
you not to go there? not to go there?
Multi-syllable Word Short Words
Identify… Point to…
Complex Verbs Simple Verbs
Might it have been... Was it…
Hypothetical Direct
If you need a break, Are you tired?
then let me know. Do you need a break?
INTERPRETERS
Pre-interview/trial meeting
Purpose and logistics
Don’t change the questions or the answers
Keep it simple
Interpret everything
 How many people live in your house?
Ask questions of each other to clarify
 Not all interpreters are fluent in the vocabulary and
concepts of child abuse
INTERPRETERS
Arrange the physical space
Interpreter slightly behind and to the
side of the Interviewer
INTERPRETERS
Prepare the child
EX: “This is Tumi (interpreter’s name) and she’s
here to help us talk. She speaks Sotho (child’s
language), but I don’t.
Make sure child understands – ask.
Speak to the child, not the interpreter
Avoid “tell him,” “ask her,” etc…
Interviewing the Teen
Adolescent Development:
Social/Emotional Factors
Risk Taking/Rule Breaking
Differing View of Social
Relationships
Both of CJ community as well as
adults/friends/etc…
Self-blame
Valid Fears about disclosure
Adolescent Maltreatment
Adolescents experience maltreatment at rates
equal to or exceeding those of younger children
Why the law exists

Adolescent girls are reported as victims more

often than boys
Why that may be
 Ages 11-18

Concerned with the present

Might have adult narrative skills
Slang may have more meaning than formal
language
Trouble with double negatives
Lose track of long, complex questions
Do not like to ask for clarification
An event can be viewed from many
perspectives
 Interviewing Adolescents
Don’t assume you know their world

Don’t try to be cool

The tragedy of middle aged hipness

Ask for clarification

Lead by example
 A Process/Protocol for Teens

Rapport
Introduction to Task
Computer Inquiry
Touch Inquiry
Information Gathering
Closure
Introduction to task
Begin with open-ended question
 “Do you know why you’re here today?”
“I talk to lots of teenagers about different things.
One thing I talk to them about is computers”
With older kids, may talk about “technology”
Computer/Technology Inquiry
Have a computer/use the Internet?
Have access to a computer(s)/Internet?
Where is the computer/technology?
Who uses it?
What is it used for?
Chat rooms, emails, IM, etc.
Computer/Technology Inquiry
Who do you talk to?
What do you talk about?
Has anything unexpected come up on
(computer) screen that surprised you?
Has anything come up on the (computer)
screen that made you feel uncomfortable?
Anyone ever sent you pictures?
What of?
Computer Inquiry
Anyone ever send you pictures of people
without their clothes on?
Anyone ask you to send pictures?
Anyone from a computer talk about meeting
in person?
On-line profile?
Social Networking
 Face Book, My Space, etc…

Anyone ever taken pictures of you without

clothes on?
Touch Inquiry
Information Gathering
Types of questions used to elicit information
 Open-ended
 Focused
 Leading
Sensory Details
See
Hear
What did perp say?
Feel
Smell
Taste
NEVER interrupt a narrative
NEVER ask “Why”
Closure
Safety Check
Questions about what discussed
Always thank child/teen