Scenes Of A Crime: Interrogation And Confessions

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.

On February 9, 2011, at approximately 7:15 AM, I, GBI Special Agent Abigail Wilkes, arrived at 293 Stone Road to process a crime scene involving two deaths. When I arrived, the crime scene was secured with yellow tape. I met with Deputy Sheriff Ray Chandler. Chandler told me that the two victims, Steve Campbell and Sherry Campbell, had two gunshot wounds each. Sherry Campbell died in the master bedroom of the residence, but emergency medical services (EMS) took Steve Campbell from the scene. Chandler informed that the EMS personnel entered the residence through the front door and placed Steve Campbell on a stretcher. Steve Campbell 's injuries created a blood drip trail when he was transported to the ambulance. The drip trail began in the master bedroom, went through the hallway, out of the front door, and into the yard of the residence. Steve Campbell died on the way to the hospital.

As the video evidently shows, the overall case was fabricated with the use of psychological tactics that broke some fundamental aspects of ethics. Getting one to confess to a crime is never easy, hence borne the numerous methods introduced and followed by almost all law enforcement officers to “read” possible suspects during interrogations. Further, with the right assembly of personal/background information, the combination of circumstances/techniques, and psychological manipulation can even make the most hardened suspect to confess (“How Police Interrogation works”). To add on, there was a time when “physical abuse” toward the possible suspects during interrogations and the confession obtained thereafter was accepted in court (“How Police Interrogation works”); Not only is this a misuse of authoritative power, but also unethical—inflicting mental /or physical pain upon the individual to confess almost seems extreme.

When questioning witnesses of a crime, detectives may choose a specific technique; one technique is the Reid Technique. The Reid Technique is a multi-step questioning method that pressures the witnesses or the accused to admit to the crime. It is used in North America. According to Professor Brent Snook, a psychologist at the Memorial University in Newfoundland, the Reid Technique is “Starsky and Hutch”, where two hot head detectives “beat up” their suspects to encourage them confess (http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/25/youre-guilty-now-confess-false-admissions-put-polices-favourite-interrogation-tactic-under-scrutiny/). This paper will examine the steps of the Reid Technique, as well as reveal substantial evidence that this technique should be banned. This technique has led to false confessions. Not only does this mean that someone has been punished that isn’t guilty, but it also means the real criminal has not been found and punished. The arguments against the use of this technique are the following:

For a society that is greatly influenced by Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Minds and Bones, a confession of the offender is seen as an ultimate checkmate of the case because it implies the guilt of the confessor. Thus, a confession, especially the ones with detailed account and perfect representation of emotions (Leo, 2008), outweighs the evidences of innocence and stirs the case against the accused (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985). People believe that they are open-minded about the possibility of false confession but in reality, the public, law enforcers and justice officials have biases that often infer guilt to the suspect instead of investigating for the truth, which leads to wrongful conviction. According to Leo and Drizin (2004), false confession is the primary cause of law miscarriage (Leo and Drizzin, 2004). False confessors lived many years in jail before being exonerated while others remain imprisoned (Leo and Drizzin, 2004).

This is a picture of what victimology is. It is also sometimes a best case scenario, a dream too good to be true for many areas in the USA. CSI and other shows demonstrate how this process might work under the most ideal of conditions with the most highly trained and most capable of

False confessions has been the centered stone in the legal system for quite some time. The law enforcement are the biggest advocate for wrongly conducting in false confessions. There are many different tactics and behavioral issues that contribute to the false confessions. The main streamline techniques that are used by law enforcement are the Reid Technique that consist of four areas; lost of control, social isolation, certainty of guilt, and exculpatory. In addition, there is also four types of false confessions; instrumental confessions, authentic confessions, voluntary confessions, and coerced confessions.

My question is who would want to confess to a crime they didn’t commit? I can understand that the pressure of the police can be a bit intense but to own up to something that you didn’t do is just I can’t wrap my mind around it, but if someone is doing this to cover for someone else then I would have to say that is completely insane. I am not sure that they know the consequences of their actions. “The Reid Technique trains officers to first ask non-accusatory questions in order to determine whether the subject is lying about their involvement in the crime.” If the officer believes that the subject is involved in the crime, then an accusatory interrogation takes place. At this stage, the officer asks questions believing that the subject is guilty and the goal is to have the subject admit guilt.” The Reid technique is one of the most used techniques that the police officers use currently. I really don’t think there are pro’s for convicted someone who didn’t do a crime that they are accused of. But looking at the cons of it, they really do outweigh the

As mentioned above, there is very minimal research on judges, police, and jurors on their opinions and beliefs in the area of false confessions and police interrogations. These key characters in the legal system are important factors to produce more information in the area of false confessions as they are working in the legal system and being the first to witness wrongful convictions. However, one recent study has shown that judges have the same biases as the mock jurors (Lassiter, Diamond, Schmidt, & Elek, 2007, p. 225). Thus, this information can lead to many controversial questions regarding whether or not judges are aware of the biases that occur in their own courtroom? Are judges being unaware of the tactics used in interrogation rooms?

I think the group presentations were good. The students that where in a group with me seemed to worked very hard on the presentation and gathering information on Al Capone. Pretty much everyone in the group was really active on coming up with ideas on the presentation and figuring out ways to make the presentation more exciting one of the member of the group decided to put pictures in our presentation to make it more lively and not boring with just words and facts of author’s they have written on Al Capone. we also consider a more graphical documentary video on Al Capone to open up the class to be interested on our topic but i really think Al Capone group could improve on a couple of things too. for example one of the my team mates gave me

In recent years, the proliferation of the popularity of crime investigation shows have risen concerns regarding the fairness of our criminal justice system. The increased use of the courtroom as the setting of drama by the media and the consistent narration employed to dramatize the show has blurred reality from fiction for the everyday citizens. Now that crime shows are so popular, CSI being the most watched TV show in the world with 69 million regular viewers worldwide; many lawyers, judges and other trained professionals are concerned that this increased exposure to unrealistic content regarding the law have given jurors an unrealistic expectation of evidence presented in court. That this has been the basis of jurors unfairly freeing

Recording a crime: When the police have decided to record a crime they will then need to decide how many crimes as well as what offences have been committed. An example of this is if there was a burglary and some car keys were taken from a house then the car was stolen it would mean there were two offences, a burglary and a theft. If there is only one victim and offender for the offences then only one crime would be recorded. If there are two or more victims then the crime will be recorded for each victim. The police are required to record crime at the earliest time possible.

Word count: 807 Eyewitness testimony is an account given by a person who was present at an event for example a robbery and they give a recollection of the event in front of the court of law. The testimony can include a description of the perpetrators, details of the crime scene and other factors which could help determine the defendant’s guilt or innocence. An eyewitness testimony is relevant in the criminal justice system because it’s one of the main forms of evidence used in court. Eyewitness testimony can be unreliable; an example of this could be discussion by witnesses which will be discussed later on the essay. There are measures that the Criminal Justice system (CJS) can put in place to increase the reliability of the testimony in turn

The role of crime scene investigator is the most challenging and complicated, albeit the roles of the criminalist and responding officers cannot be taken for granted. The investigator here is like a supervisor – s/he supervises the investigation, or how each part of the evidence connects with the other parts, and in collaboration with the responding officers and criminalist try to re-enact the scene. It appears at first glance that the victims were raped before they were killed; the scenes were blood stained or turned into a mess, and then the suspects turned away, realizing what they had done, or content of what had just occurred.

In this paper, I am going to describe each specialized personnel that will be needed at the scene of a crime or mass disaster. I will inform you of what duties each of these specialized individuals will possess. You will be able to know and understand each of these responsibilities.