Uses techniques from psychological science and legal theory to explore police interrogation in the United States Understanding Police Interrogation provides a single comprehensive source for understanding issues relating to police interrogation and confession. It sheds light on the range of factors that may influence the outcome of the interrogation of a suspect, which ones make it more likely that a person will confess, and which may also inadvertently lead to false confessions. There is a significant psychological component to police interrogations, as interrogators may try to build rapport with the suspect, or trick them into thinking there is evidence against them that does not exist. Also important is the extent to which the interrogator is convinced of the suspect’s guilt, a factor that has clear ramifications for today’s debates over treatment of black suspects and other people of color in the criminal justice system. The volume employs a totality of the circumstances approach, arguing that a number of integrated factors, such as the characteristics of the suspect, the characteristics of the interrogators, interrogation techniques and location, community perceptions of law enforcement, and expectations for jurors and judges, all contribute to the nature of interrogations and the outcomes and perceptions of the criminal justice system. The authors argue that by drawing on this approach we can better explain the likelihood of interrogation outcomes, including true and false confessions, and provide both scholars and practitioners with a greater understanding of best practices going forward.

"Read him his rights." We all recognize this line from cop dramas. But what happens afterward? In this book, Richard Leo sheds light on a little-known corner of our criminal justice system--the police interrogation. Incriminating statements are necessary to solve crimes, but suspects almost never have reason to provide them. Therefore, as Leo shows, crime units have developed sophisticated interrogation methods that rely on persuasion, manipulation, and deception to move a subject from denial to admission, serving to shore up the case against him. Ostensibly aimed at uncovering truth, the structure of interrogation requires that officers act as an arm of the prosecution. Skillful and fair interrogation allows authorities to capture criminals and deter future crime. But Leo draws on extensive research to argue that confessions are inherently suspect and that coercive interrogation has led to false confession and wrongful conviction. He looks at police evidence in the court, the nature and disappearance of the brutal "third degree," the reforms of the mid-twentieth century, and how police can persuade suspects to waive their Miranda rights. An important study of the criminal justice system, Police Interrogation and American Justice raises unsettling questions. How should police be permitted to interrogate when society needs both crime control and due process? How can order be maintained yet justice served?

Easy-to-read and practical, this text uses a survey approach and numerous examples to illustrate interviewing skills and techniques. Using his years of experience as an instructor at the FBI Academy, the author dispels some of the mystery surrounding the interview process by sharing techniques and ideas that have been used successfully. The author has years of experience as an FBI academy instructor.

After a lone trip to Chernobyl in 2005, Donald Weber returned to the abandoned site of the nuclear disaster and spent the next six years in Russia and Ukraine photographing the ruins of the unstoppable storm we call history. Traveling and living with ordinary people who had endured much, and survived everything. Weber began to see the modern state as a primitive and bloody sacrifical rite of unnamed power. INTERROGATIONS is the result of his personal quest to uncover the hidden meaning of the bloody 20th century. In dialogue with writer Larry Frolick - whose own ancestors had been decimated in the final months of WW II - Weber insistently and provocatively addresses his questions both to the living survivors and to the ghosts of the State's innumerable victims, resurrecting their final hours by taking their point of view, and performing a kind of incantatory meditation over their private encounters with power. The policeman, working girls, thugs, dissidents and hustlers who inhabit these pages are all orphans of a secret history; the outline of our collective fate takes shape in Weber's epic work, expanding our awareness of what it means to be an actor in today's dark opera.

Used by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to train interrogators, this manual details the insidious methods by which the "mounties" elicit confessions after all fair and legal tactics have been exhausted. Must reading for every police officer, as well as for every citizen who might one day, innocent or guilty, sit across the table from an interrogator.

Uses techniques from psychological science and legal theory to explore police interrogation in the United States Understanding Police Interrogation provides a single comprehensive source for understanding issues relating to police interrogation and confession. It sheds light on the range of factors that may influence the outcome of the interrogation of a suspect, which ones make it more likely that a person will confess, and which may also inadvertently lead to false confessions. There is a significant psychological component to police interrogations, as interrogators may try to build rapport with the suspect, or trick them into thinking there is evidence against them that does not exist. Also important is the extent to which the interrogator is convinced of the suspect’s guilt, a factor that has clear ramifications for today’s debates over treatment of black suspects and other people of color in the criminal justice system. The volume employs a totality of the circumstances approach, arguing that a number of integrated factors, such as the characteristics of the suspect, the characteristics of the interrogators, interrogation techniques and location, community perceptions of law enforcement, and expectations for jurors and judges, all contribute to the nature of interrogations and the outcomes and perceptions of the criminal justice system. The authors argue that by drawing on this approach we can better explain the likelihood of interrogation outcomes, including true and false confessions, and provide both scholars and practitioners with a greater understanding of best practices going forward.

Juveniles possess less maturity, intelligence, and competence than adults, which heightens their vulnerability in the justice system. For this reason, states try juveniles in separate courts and use different sentencing standards than for adults. Yet, when police bring kids in for questioning, they use the same tactics they use for adults to elicit confessions or to produce incriminating evidence to use against them. In Kids, Cops, and Confessions, the author offers the first report of what actually happens when police question juveniles. Analyzing interrogation tapes and transcripts, police reports, juvenile court filings, and probation and sentencing reports, he describes in rich detail what actually happens inside the interrogation room.