Module 1 Assignment 2
Module 1
In this module, we will cover a variety of topics related to interviews conducted by mental health professionals and interrogations conducted by law enforcement and military personnel. To help set the stage for the remainder of this course, we will first review the ethical issues involved in interviews when working as a consultant to individuals conducting interrogations.
The American Psychological Association (APA) recently established a policy on the forensic psychology professional's role in interrogations. This policy was the direct result of some psychologists' involvement with the interrogations of detainees at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Basically, these psychologists reversed the survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (SERE) training techniques to explore how to break people down psychologically. This created a huge controversy in the mental health field, which led to an APA task force to establish a policy on the role of psychologists in interrogation and torture. We will review this policy as well as how the ethics code informs our decisions in interviews and as consultants to interrogations.
We will also review some of the different interviewing and interrogating techniques, with an eye toward the scientific reliability and validity of these approaches. In doing so, we will review the literature on false confessions and what approaches can be used to minimize the risk of obtaining a false confession. Sadly, there are numerous examples of innocent individuals confessing to crimes they did not commit. A relatively recent example is the Central Park jogger incident in which five black and Hispanic teenagers were convicted of raping and assaulting a twenty-eight-year-old white female jogger in Central Park, New York, in 1989. The juveniles were found guilty of what New York's mayor called "the crime of the century," and some served as many as thirteen years in prison for a crime they did not commit. All five convictions were eventually overturned in 2002, after a murderer and serial rapist confessed to the attack. Although four of the five juveniles confessed to the crime, they had not committed the crime.
Some interrogation techniques appear to influence certain individuals to confess to crimes they never committed. It appears that at times the interrogation process can implant false memories, causing an individual to believe that he or she remembered committing a crime that he or she did not commit. False memories have also been known to be created in the context of counseling, frequently entailing childhood sexual abuse. Although we do not know the entire process of how false memories occur, forensic psychology professionals can offer suggestions on how to minimize the risk of false confessions in interviews and interrogations.
Describe, explain, and integrate the role differences and outcome differences between psychological interviewing and assessment and interviewing and interrogation in the context of criminal investigations, workplace investigations, and the wide variety of settings in which investigations take place.
Analyze and apply models of and approaches to interrogation and interviewing across the diversity of forensic professional settings, legal situations, and different types of interviewee.
Apply and integrate ethical and legal standards within the practice of interrogation and interviewing with all populations, including special populations such as youth and the aged, vulnerable individuals, victims and family members, and cultural groups.
Critically evaluate practice strategies used and information obtained using current research and best practices related to interviewing and interrogation.
