Legal Psychology

Gerhard OhrbandULIM University, Moldova

4th lecturePolice psychology

Course structure

Lectures: • 1. Introduction into Legal Psychology – Theories of crime • 2. Correctional treatment• 3. Victimology• 4. Police psychology• 5. Testimony assessment• 6. Criminal responsibility• 7. Judicial judgments• 8. Psychological assessment of families

Course structure

Seminars:9. Eyewitness testimony10. Jury decision-making11. Child abuse12. Prostitution13. Rape14. Tax evasion15. Stereotypes and prejudices in the law system

1. Police interrogation of witnesses

2. The cognitive interview

3. Interviewing suspects

4. False confessions

5. Hostage negotiations

6. Offender profiling, crime scene analysis

Content

1. Police interrogation of witnesses

Goals of an interrogation:• Detailed illumination of the deed• Under diminishment of process faults• And secondary victimizationSpecialities of an interrogation from a

communication psychology point of view:• Rareness of the incident• Institutionalized communication• Asymmetrical communication

Basic interrogation principles

Witness-centered interrogation style

Suggestion-free interrogation style

Focus Relationship plane Content plane

Elements Pseudosymmetry

Transparency

Control

Meta-communication

Openness for results

Free report

“Trichtertechnik”

Non-suggestive questions

Quality-ensuring questions

2. The Cognitive Interview• Relaxed posture; no hectic movements and other nonverbal or paraverbal

signs of tension• Regular eye-contect with the interrogated, but no staring• Slow speech, short sentences, only one question at a time• Active listening, showing attention through social reinforcers (nodding, “mm”

etc.)• Reinforces only effort, not specific topics• Permit pauses, even when they are long• Introduction with a neutral or positive topic for the interviewed• Communicate expectations (detailled indications, concentration and effort

for retrieval)• Initiate a free report with an open question• Start further interrogation with open question, only afterwards detailed

questions• Avoid sudden changes of the topic in questions• Let the report order to the responsibility of the interrogated person • Regular paraphrazing oder summarizing by the interviewer

3. Interviewing suspects

4. False confessions

Taxonomy of false confessions (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985):

1. Free-will2. Coerced-compliant3. Coerced-internalizedGudjonsson (2003): free-will, coerced, internalized

and source of influence (internal vs. external)USA: false confessions where the cause in ¼ of

cases where a DNA analysis showed a false convictions (Drizen & Leo, 2004)

Incidence rates of false confessions: Islandic studies

• Gudjonsson & Sigurdsson (1994); prison inmates: 12%

• Motives: a) protecting of another person, b) coercion by the police, c) evasion from further detention

• Less than 1/3 reported they took their false confession back before the main process

• 72% said false confession led to a judgment• Less than 1% stated they where currently in prison

because of a false confession• False confession mostly for smaller offenses like theft or

damaging of property

Islandic pupils (Gudjonsson, Sigurdsson, Asgeirsdottir & Sigfusdottir, 2006)

• N = > 10 000 pupils• Ca. 1/5 had already been interrogated as an

accused• Ca. 50% said to have made a true confession• 7,3% (N=641) declared to have made at least

one false confession• 12% in the group of those interrogated more

times• Thus: self-confessions without a reliable

external criterion represent a problematic measure

Risk factors for false confessions

• Personality factors

• Adolescent age

• Low intellectual capacities

• Psychiatric disorders

• Methods of interrogation (“Reid-Technique”)

5. Hostage negotiations

S.A.F.E. model (Rogan & Hammer, 2002)

• Substantive (demand) frame

• Attunement frame

• Face frame

• Emotion frame

6. Offender profiling

Literature

• Akehurst, L., Milne, R. & Koehnken, G. (2003). The effects of children’s age and delay on recall in a cognitive or structured interview. Psychology, Crime and Law, 9, 97-107.

• Collins, A.M. & Loftus, E.F. (1975). A spreading activation theory of semantic processing. Psychological Review, 82, 407-428.

• Mello, E.M. & Fisher, R.P. (1996). Enhancing older adult eyewitness memory with the Cognitive Interview. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 10, 403-417.

• Sigurdsson, J. & Gudjonsson, G. (1997). The criminal history of “false confessors” and other prison inmates. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 8, 447-455.