The Reid Technique Of Interrogation

In the US, police often use the Reid Technique during interrogations. This technique was designed to elicit confessions from suspects. However, this technique can also lead to false confessions. One such case was the case of Michael Crowe, who was accused of murdering his sister. Michael, who was 14 at the time, was questioned by investigators until he eventually confessed to the murder, which he did not commit.

There are three processes that are vital to the Reid technique and they are isolation, confrontation and minimization. The isolation is to create anxiety in an individual so that they feel a need to get away. The confrontation process is when the suspect is accused of a crime. Finally the minimization process is when an investigator uses sympathy to help the suspect justify the crime giving them a way to admit to it. Needless to say there are three reasons for people being pessimistic about the ability of others in deciding who is lying and who is telling the truth.

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.

Renegotiation of reality occurs when, by virtue of the institutionalized process of police interrogations, the suspect perceives that his initial reality holds no value to the interrogator or to the outcome of the interrogation, when he lacks agency to defend his reality, and when there is no other option. In this paper, I will illustrate how each of these factors facilitates false confessions and will use the Norfolk Four case as my vehicle for exploration and analysis.

Our criminal justice system has over time implemented and changed the means of sentencing and punishment for crimes. In the United States plea deals are accountable for 90% of criminal cases. A plea deal is an agreement between prosecutor and defendant in whom the defendant accepts a guilty plea to a charge and in return receives some type of concession from the prosecution. As we have moved forward in the judicial system and now have the ability to look back on previous cases, plea deals have become more controversial. The majority of awareness in this area has been used to look deeper into false confessions, grazing right over the fact that false confessions are a large part plea deals. A controversy arose when many refused to believe that situational factors during interrogations and dispositional factors inherent to the suspects could result in false confessions. (Redlich, 2010)

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:

In 1962, Criminal Interrogation and Confessions was written by John E. Reid and Fred Inbau. According to Robert Kolker he wrote, the book breaks down the

The United States prides itself on having robust, deeply entrenched measures implemented across its core agencies, including the police and criminal justice system, to safeguard against wrongfully convicting people who, after further reflection, are factually found to be innocent. As citizens, we have been educated to trust, among other things, that our systems protect the notions that one is innocent until proven guilty and that prosecution must prove any charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Yet, wrongful convictions are more prevalent than we might think. In particular, the publicity of hundreds of cases over the last few decades has put a spotlight on this indisputable

[I]n 2001, three young men robbed a McDonald’s restaurant in Milwaukee. 14-year-old Jerrell C.J. was arrested in connection with the offense, taken to the police station, booked, and placed in an interrogation room. In the room, Jerrell was handcuffed to a wall and left alone for approximately two hours. At 9 a.m., Police Detectives Ralph Spano and Kurt Sutter entered the interrogation room. The detectives introduced themselves, removed Jerrell’s handcuffs, and asked him some background questions. Jerrell stated that he was 14 years old and in the eighth grade. He also provided the names, addresses, and phone numbers of his parents and siblings. Jerrell was advised of his Miranda rights, and the detectives then began to question Jerrell about the armed robbery. Jerrell denied any involvement. The detectives challenged this denial and encouraged Jerrell to be "truthful and honest" and "start standing up for what he did." Jerrell again denied his involvement. The detectives again challenged his denial.

The officers that interrogated Cathy Woods used the Reid Model which is a nine step model of interrogation that is used to extract false confessions from suspects (Bennel,Forth,Pozzulo). The Reid model is the most used form of interrogation in the United States but has problems because the way it’s used puts a lot of stress on the suspects to confess to a crime they may not even have committed. For example, having interrogations that are hours even days long and denying suspects food, water and even being able to use the bathroom will make people confess just to end the interrogation, which is what happened to Cathy Woods. Cathy Woods’s false confession falls into the Coerced-compliant category because she confessed to a crime she knew she didn’t commit, but did it anyway to end the interrogation. Cathy Woods also vulnerable to false confessions because of her mental illness. To avoid false confessions such as Cathy Woods there must be safety nets in place that would be able to capture these inadequate interrogations. For instance, Saul Kassin a distinguished Professor of Psychology suggests we record all interrogations and have it reviewed by a judge before a trial starts. This way our chances of catching a false confession goes up and we can avoid people who are innocent from serving harsh

     There has been many inmates sentenced to death row that innocent. Since 1973, more than 99 people have been released from prison after being sentenced to death despite their innocence, The Social Psychology of Police Interrogation: The

In coercive interrogation, the arrest officers may use physical evidence to force the defendant to admit to a crime that he or she did not commit. The case given in the study, the officers, use psychological coercion to make the suspect believe that he actually committed the crime. Through the use of evidence that does not exist such as the presence of an eyewitness who saw the accused commit the crimes, the presence of fingerprints in the crime site, as well as DNA test from the crime zone, makes the suspect to believe that he must have blacked out. Considering that he does not remember how and when he committed the crime, it is easy for him to give false confession after hours and hours of isolation and interrogation. Despite the fact that interrogation is an effective way to obtain information, it is prone to errors such as false confession after suspects are coerced mentally, psychologically and

What does it take to close a case? Investigators -- engulfed in a slew of incriminating evidence and having secured some extremely reliable witnesses is a substantial amount to put away a prime suspect. What can insure that a case is closed even more quickly is a confession from the suspect. This confession usually takes a certain amount of coercion, on the part of the interrogators, to achieve. Coercion is an interrogation technique that uses intimidation to get suspects to confess to crimes whether or not they are truly guilty of any crime. Some will argue that coercion is a brilliant method with which to incarcerate criminals with. Others will say that it is much more beneficial to conduct a full investigation instead of relying on a

In order to reduce false confessions, experts have encouraged investigators to limit the time of the interrogation process. Usually interrogations last for more than ten hours, which causes the suspect to become mentally exhausted, forcing them to sign a false confession. The other suggestion that experts give investigators is to maintain a competent adult in the room when interrogating a juvenile or an individual who has a mental disability. However, the most important and most beneficial tactic to implement would be to video record the interrogation process. This would give the judge a clear view of how the suspect was treated and will create more credibility to their initial confession. According to the Innocence Project (n.d), more than

One of the best training programs to implement into the police department is the Reid interrogation techniques. Interrogation and interviewing techniques became popular in 1947 by John E. Reid and Associates. Joseph P. Buckley stated that “The Reid Technique of Interviewing and Interrogation is now the most widely used approach to question subjects in the world (Buckley P. J., 2000).” There three- parts to the Reid process for solving a crime. The first stage that should be taking is to collect and analyze relative information from the crime scene thing that offers insight to the possible suspect and determine the direction an investigation should take. The second stage of the process interviewing people of interest using Behavior Analysis Interview (BAI) (Buckley P. J., 2000). The Behavior Analysis Interview is a non-accusatory process that allows detectives to interview a suspect using a question and answer procedure to provoke a suspect to show non- verbal truthfulness or deception. The third stage, if the offender has not admitted to the crime an accusatory interrogation is administered (Leave no marks, 2007). The Reid interrogation technique is believed to be a fail proof technique ,however, there are some reservations against using this technique on juvenile offenders (Constitutional Law(n.d). Implementing the Reid technique into the police departments learning curriculum will truly