Making A Case - interviewing suspects

Vrig and Mann - detecting lies

• test police officers ability to detect deception
• field experiment
• 52 uniformed officers
• lecture on interviewing suspects - 8 clips from videotaped press conferences where people were asking for help in finding relatives.
• 5 clips people had been later convicted of the crime
• watched a clip and answered 4 questions: is the person lying? how confident of that are you? can you understand what the person is saying? are there any behaviour cues that you spotted?
• 49/52 officers no better at detecting lies than if they were guessing
• only 3 officers were right 80% of the time
• age, length of service and experience had no effect
• men better than women

Inbau - interrogation techniques

• direct positive confrontation - suspect told directly that they are believed to have committed the offence
• theme development - interrogator suggests to the suspect possible reasons for the crime, which minimise involvement or culpability. Aim is to show sympathy making it easier to admit guilt
• handling denials - interrogator interrupts denials to prevent suspect gaining the psychological advantage
• overcoming objections -…