

Beyond Good Cop/Bad Cop: A Look At Real-Life Interrogations - dredmorbius
http://www.npr.org/2013/12/05/248968150/beyond-good-cop-bad-cop-a-look-at-real-life-interrogations

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dredmorbius
A number of things stood out to me in this piece.

First was the fact of confession bias: even if unconsciously, once we've heard
a confession, we tend to discount information which would contradict it. I've
seen a similar general trend: if someone tells us something we tend to believe
them, reality notwithstanding. People pay attention to words.

There's the PEACE model for ferreting out truth and falsehoods, which
dismisses many of the "physical indicators of lying" notions:

 _That model is: Lying and anxiety have nothing to do with each other, and
lying and body language have nothing to do with each other. However, lying
creates a cognitive load, and the more you lie, the more elements you have to
juggle, and if you keep going back and asking for more and more details,
eventually that system breaks down. ... What the PEACE technique helps you do
is find out which part of the story is verifiable and which part isn 't._

I've found that cues of coherence and specificity in stories are helpful to me
in assessing the veracity of both personal interactions and of academic /
topical research.

In the interview, Douglas Starr also mentions the case of people who've
appeared on TV or in public making appeals to find the perpetrator of crimes
for which they were later convicted on evidence (and by all appearances
accurately) -- the displays of emotion these people present don't show any of
the physical signs of lying that the Reid method is based on.

And finally, the behavioral tricks employed by investigators and by which
subjects operate which tend to result in false confessions are telling. The
pressure to confess, and the sense of the subject that confessing will somehow
make things better (it almost always doesn't) are both psychological traps
which tend to produce a false result.

Even in areas far removed from law enforcement or interrogation, I see
valuable lessons here.

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ErsatzVerkehr
_This American Life_ recently featured an episode on (false) confessions. I
found one of the stories in particular quite painful: the suspect who
confessed just in order to get the interrogation over with, the cop who didn't
realize that they had spoon-fed the suspect the facts to support their own
confession. Give it a listen:

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/507/c...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/507/confessions?act=1#play)

~~~
mistercow
Warning: may cause uncontrollable sobbing.

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dllthomas
_" [T]hat's unfortunate because for every innocent person that's put away, the
person who really committed the crime is still on the streets."_

... and it's unfortunate because we put away an innocent person! I'd rather be
stolen from a few times than interrogated, tried, and jailed.

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dsego
There is a popular lecture on youtube where a defense attorney and a police
officer give some interesting insights in the criminal investigation process.

[http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc](http://youtu.be/6wXkI4t7nuc).

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tempestn
Here's a question. We all know that if you're interrogated by the police, we
don't want to say anything without a lawyer present, regardless of our total
innocence. So, say the cops show up at your house and arrest you. What's the
best way to find a good criminal lawyer in this situation? If I learned
anything from watching The Practice it's that the good lawyers aren't the ones
who advertise in the phone book. Normally to find a professional of any sort I
would look for personal recommendations and/or do some Google research, but
that would be difficult from an interrogation room. Should we all find good
local criminal lawyers now, on the off chance we're ever suspected of a crime?

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fotbr
If your attorney isn't in the room, there's no such thing as a "Good Cop". If
your attorney is in the room, there's still no such thing as a "Good Cop", so
listen to your attorney.

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coin
Why do sites like this disable pinchzoom for mobile devices?

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TillE
Alternatively, why do mobile devices ever allow pinch zoom to be disabled?
It's such a useful accessibility feature for anyone with less-than-perfect
eyesight.

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hobs
Long story short, if you are arrested CLAM UP AND ONLY ASK FOR YOUR LAWYER,
SAY NOTHING ELSE.

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danso
It's unfortunate the New Yorker put its piece behind a paywall...it is an
excellent read and makes important contributions to the topic.

As someone already commented, This American Life did an episode on
confessions: one involves a woman who was coerced using the techniques
described in the OP (the New Yorker piece goes into detail about her
case)...and the other focuses on a teenage boy who refused to say anything,
even decades later...both stories are incredible to listen to, the latter,
especially, as the formerly accused man may have been the most Zen-accused-
child-murdering-rapist in history:

[http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/507/c...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-
archives/episode/507/confessions?act=1#play)

And another commenter has already pointed out the Don't Talk to Police video:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc&feature=youtu.be](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc&feature=youtu.be)

(I can't believe it only has 3 million page views given how often it's brought
up in most techie/political threads)

Both the TAL and the Youtube are worth listening/watching...the latter
provides the theory, the former provides the practice.

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likeclockwork
Sounds like they're trained to attack when they perceive signs of weakness.
Being intimidated == being guilty.

