The Reid Technique of Interviewing and Interrogation

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I found a PDF that details the methods used by police departments all over the world to extract a criminal "confession" from a suspect. Note that the Reid Technique is NOT used to solve crimes, but to bypass due legal process and deny you your rights. And by "confession", I mean any statement that indicates that you are guilty as charged, whether or not you have actually committed a crime!

The Reid Technique of Interviewing and Interrogation

National Public Radio aired an interview with a person who has found flaws in the Reid Technique.

Beyond Good Cop/Bad Cop: A Look At Real-Life Interrogations

Bottom line: If you are brought in by the police for interrogation, you simply MUST: (1) Exercise your right to remain silent; (2) Exercise your right to have an attorney present during questioning; (3) Insist on a trial by jury, if formally charged; and (4) Plead "Not Guilty" to all charges.

If the police still insist on asking questions, DENY EVERYTHING!! ! Force them to prove their case in court.

Of course, all of the foregoing presumes that you are indeed innocent of any crimes.

In the self defense community, we have sort of a motto for interacting with the police: STFU! If you must say something, stick to "I'll be happy to cooperate fully with council present", the libertarian version is "am I being detained?". Good advice on both counts.

I've seen TV documentaries where innocent people have been browbeaten during interrogation so badly with the good cop bad cop routine, that they admitted doing the crimes outlined by the police just to make the interrogation stop. The peoples' innocence subsequently came to light, sometimes many years after they had been imprisoned for the crime. I can imagine lots of innocent people crumbling under these situations - hour after hour of interrogation, forced lack of sleep, little or no food or water, kept in rooms too hot or too cold. Most people probably never find themselves in such intimidating circumstanced in their life... ever, so not surprising that they crumble just to make it stop.

Have you seen the part where the police and prosecutors responsible continue to insist on the persons guilt and attempt to block their release, even in the face of a DNA match to another person with a history of that type of crime? It's pretty disgraceful, their "conviction record" is more important to them than the innocent lives they ruin.

I wasn't a cop, but I was employed as an investigator for about 5 years. I was taught the Wicklander-Zulawski method; which positions itself more as an "interview" rather than interrogation method, although the goal is the same.

Learning the method really opened a Pandora's box for me, as I did not know about AS at the time. I think the fact that it was my job made it easier for me to use the methods.

In the method, you are taught to read body language, especially the eyes. For instance, the direction(s) that someone looks while explaining an event can tell you about their truthfulness. This made eye contact an absolute necessity. While I could accomplish this at work; in my private life, I found that I maintained even less eye contact with family and friends. I think I thought I was "reading" them; which I considered rude...for the most part.