Special Issue: the Science and Practice of Interrogation, Circa 1877-1989.

The opening chapter examines the history of civilian policing and the implications this history has for the emergence, development, and current practice of police interrogation in the United States. In particular, the authors emphasize the political nature of early-twentieth-century policing and the related coercive interrogation tactics, which led to backlash from legal investigations, journalists, courts, and law enforcement officers who were reformers. In response to these critiques, policing separated from political patronage, established academies and other educational requirements, and replaced coercive interrogation tactics with deception. The chapter closes with contemporary pressures for reform and comparisons of current reforms with earlier changes in interrogation practice.

This chapter examines police interrogation law and practice in common law jurisdictions. It begins with an overview of police interrogation myths, with the objective of dispelling them by showing that interrogation law and practice are located in the broader fields of criminal process and investigative activity. It then reviews the literature on interrogation law and practice, along with the purposes, uses, and functions of interrogation. It also explores interrogation by other state agents and private parties operating at the edges of criminal process or beyond; the impact of miscarriages of justice, coerced confessions, wrongful convictions, and failed prosecutions on interrogation law and practice; electronic recording as a means of improving investigative performance; the Reid Technique of interviewing suspects; the use of the PEACE model in investigative interviewing; and the work of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG) with respect to intelligence interrogation.

The subject of the study is the modern forensic investigative practice of recording the testimony of interrogated persons at the preliminary investigation, which indicates a tendency to increase the volume of interrogation protocols being compiled. The object of the study is the regularities of the procedure for recording the testimony of the interrogated persons. It is noted that the preparation of the interrogation protocol is the most time-consuming final stage of this investigative action. Analysis of scientific publications in recent years shows that forensic scientists focus on the tactics and psychology of interrogation. As part of the forensic tactics of interrogation, the issues of the specifics of the use of additional means of fixation in the form of audio-video recordings and requirements for the content of the interrogation protocol are also considered. The existing procedure for recording the testimony of interrogated persons in the typewriter mode remains acute. The novelty of the research lies in the author's proposal to introduce modern computer technologies and artificial intelligence into the practice of drawing up interrogation protocols that allow converting oral speech into text. We are talking about automatic speech recognition and the conversion of a speech signal into digital information in the form of text (transcription of oral speech). Currently, transcription is widely used in various spheres of human activity. It is noted that it is permissible to use transcription technology from the standpoint of criminal procedural regulation of interrogation and confrontation.The use of transcription means will allow the investigator to focus on communicating with the interrogated person, achieve psychological contact, track testimony, use tactical techniques, etc. Modern software allows the introduction of the specified technology of recording the testimony of interrogated persons into the practice of interrogation.

Purpose This study aims to test the effect of a falsely balanced message (i.e. exposure to two opposing arguments) on perceived expert consensus about an interrogation practice. Design/methodology/approach Participants (N = 254) read a statement about minimization tactics and were assigned randomly to one of four conditions, where true expert consensus about the tactic was either presented as high or low, and a balanced message (i.e. read two opposing arguments about the factual nature of the tactic) was present or absent. Findings Results showed that exposure to balanced messages led to less perceived expert consensus; especially when true expert consensus about the tactic was high. Exposure to balanced messages also reduced public support for experts testifying about the interrogation tactic. Research limitations/implications Such findings suggest that pairing expert knowledge (i.e. empirical evidence) about investigative interviewing issues with denials might be powerful enough to override scientific beliefs about important matters in this field. Originality/value Researchers in the field of investigative interviewing have put much effort into developing evidence-based interviewing practices and debunking misconceptions on the field. While knowledge mobilization is particularly important in this consequential, applied domain, there are some individuals who aim to hinder the advancement and reform of investigative interviewing. Falsely balancing scientific findings (e.g. minimization tactics imply leniency) with denials is but one of many practices that can distort the public’s perception of expert consensus on an issue. It is crucial for investigative interviewing researchers to recognize such strategies and develop ways to combat science denialism.

Despite the attention paid to the issues raised by torture and interrogation since 2001, there remains scope for greater understanding of these practices. Interrogation is often discussed with little reference to the complex realities of interrogation and the intelligence machine that it belongs to. This article seeks to draw attention to the value of injecting greater knowledge and understanding of intelligence practices into the torture debate. It does so by highlighting what the available literature on intelligence has to offer and by drawing upon what is publicly known about the interrogation of terror suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. This example demonstrates the complexities of the issues faced by a range of practitioners today, serving as an important reminder that in order to be relevant to practice, scholarly discussions can benefit from drawing upon the available evidence on the practice of interrogation and its place relative to wider intelligence activities.

The UK’s interrogation operations during the conflict in Iraq (2003–2008) are often portrayed by the media as involving significant amounts of mistreatment. This article demonstrates that these practices are not necessarily representative of the UK’s interrogation operations across this conflict. In doing so it contributes to the limited literature on the practice of interrogation and on the UK’s combat operations in Iraq. The UK’s interrogation capability, and therefore its intelligence-gathering capability, is shown to have rested primarily with the military’s Joint Forward Interrogation Team (JFIT). The JFIT suffered from limitations to the number, training and experience of its interrogators and interpreters. It is argued that maintaining a permanent, higher level of preparedness for interrogation by the British armed forces is desirable.

1 Historical Developments in Policing and the Practice of Interrogation: The Emergence of Civilian Policing

The profile is taken from a long, indepth article on the theory and practice of interrogation by Mark Bowden, a national correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly and author of six books. The full article is available online at www.theatlantic.com.

Critics have frequently accused Russian Formalism of supporting an apolitical separation of art from life. As a central Formalist term, estrangement (ostranenie) often bore the brunt of this accusation. Taking issue with this critique, this essay focuses on the entangled relationship between the aesthetics and politics of estrangement and argues that an attentive look at the history of estrangement reveals its deep involvement with revolutionary and police state politics. This essay traces estrangement's conflicted development through Victor Shklovsky's oeuvre and beyond, in the work of Nicolae Steinhardt and Joseph Brodsky, and also in secret police interrogation and reeducation practices and in CIA manuals.In Sentimental Journey, Shklovsky wrote that during the civil war, life itself was made strange and became art. Shklovsky's memoirs shed light on the effects of this revolutionary estrangement on the self. Furthermore, the memoirs reenacted this unsettling estrangement by incorporating elements of official Soviet genres, such as the trial deposition, the interrogation autobiography, and the letter to the government. As Shklovsky suggests, the effects of revolutionary estrangement on the self were certainly not limited to the therapeutic value of refreshing perception that is commonly ascribed to artistic estrangement. Indeed, estrangement of the self was a key device in secret police interrogation and reeducation practices; as such, it was instrumental in the politicized fashioning of the subject during Soviet times. In their confrontations with this police state brand of estrangement, writers like Joseph Brodsky and Nicolae Steinhardt further probed its methods and then appropriated its lessons for their own ends, developing self-estrangement as a new art of survival.

Does theU.S.public's support for the use of harsh interrogation and detention practices against terrorism suspects depend upon the religious identity of the alleged perpetrators? Some scholarly research indicates greater public acceptance for abridging the rights of Muslims after 9/11. This is consistent with literature suggesting that heightened perception of threat decreases popular tolerance for racial, ethnic, and religious outgroups. This study executes a survey experiment and finds respondents to be more permissive of the use of extraordinary detention practices, such as indefinite detention and denying suspects access to legal counsel and civilian criminal courts, against terror suspects identified as Muslims. Furthermore, the study reveals that respondents are significantly less likely to treat domestic, right‐wing terrorist suspects with extraordinary detention, suggesting ingroup leniency.

This survey examined current law enforcement beliefs and practices about interviewing and interrogation to gauge whether they have evolved given the research and training developed over the past 20 years. We hypothesized that police beliefs and practices would have evolved along with research findings over the past 20 years. We surveyed 526 law enforcement officers about the practices and beliefs regarding interviewing and interrogation. We asked questions about officers' beliefs about rates of true and false confessions, time spent in the interrogation room, beliefs about their ability to detect deception, training experience, practices of recording interrogations, and their self-reported use of interrogation techniques. Overall, when we compared our survey with Kassin et al.'s (2007) seminal survey, we found both similar results and evolving positive trends. The average interview was reportedly 1.6 hr, virtually no different from that in Kassin and colleagues' study. In addition, our sample reported that 26.2% of innocent suspects at least partially falsely confessed. Further, whereas Kassin and colleagues found that fewer than one in 10 interrogations were video recorded, we found that now more than half of interrogations are recorded in this way. In a geographically diverse sample of U.S. law enforcement officers, we found significant positive trends toward knowledge and practices informed by research generated over the past decades on interviewing and interrogation. Although causality could not be determined, these findings indicate an evolution of the U.S. law enforcement mindset in a more science-based direction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The war on terrorism weakened the distinction between observing suspicious bodies and torturing them. This article examines ‘enhanced interrogation’ (or torture) practices developed after 9/11 and considers that techniques used overseas by the United States may be applied domestically. The role of the FBI is highlighted since it now has assumed the central authority to interrogate all terrorist suspects held by the United States. Although enhanced interrogation no longer is permitted, the conservative perspective still views it as legitimate conduct and ignores the victimization of innocent people misidentified as terrorists.

This article examines the efforts to hold high-level US officials accountable for their alleged role in the torture and other serious abuse of detainees under US control through the principle of universal jurisdiction. First, it sets out what is known about United States detention and interrogation practices during the so-called ‘war on terror’, and what efforts, if any, have been undertaken in the United States to hold individuals accountable for their role in the torture and serious abuse of detainees. After a preliminary comment on the definition of torture, it examines the factual and legal underpinnings, and adjudicative results of the cases filed in this regard in Germany and France, and the recent efforts undertaken in Spain. It concludes by enquiring about the role and future of universal jurisdiction, particularly in cases of powerful defendants, in closing the impunity gap for serious violations of international law. After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account. — Maj. General Antonio M. Taguba (US-Ret.), led the US Army’s official investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal.1 In releasing these [torture] memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution . … This is a time for reflection, not retribution. — President Barack Obama, on release of legal memos that govern interrogations using ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’, including acts recognized to be torture.2

The current article presents a series of commentaries on urgent issues and prospects in reforming interrogation practices in Canada and the United States. Researchers and practitioners, who have devoted much of their careers to the field of police and intelligence interrogations, were asked to provide their insights on an area of interrogation research that they believe requires immediate attention. The submitted independent commentaries covered a variety of topics – from police recruitment, interrogation training, use of proper interrogation practices, and the treatment of confession evidence in court. Common concerns from the contributions pertained to the lag between scientific knowledge on interrogations and the application of such knowledge in the justice system, and the glaring disparity between the treatment of similar issues in the interrogation context versus other criminal justice contexts. A primary intent of this collection of commentaries is to serve as a resource pointing researchers in the direction of the fundamental areas that require immediate consideration and encouraging them to simultaneously pursue solutions to the overarching concerns that emerged from this project.

Suspected terrorists held at US detention facilities were “systematically subjected to torture and ill treatment,” says a detailed medical and psychological evaluation of former detainees conducted by Physicians for Human...