Police practices and beliefs about interviewing and interrogation: Where are they now?

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Previous research has surveyed law enforcement about their beliefs as they relate to interview and interrogation practices and false confessions (see Kassin et al., 2007). However, since then there has been a major increase in research and evidence-based practices in the field (Meissner et al., 2017). The current survey is an updated survey based on Kassin and his colleagues’ work to assess whether attitudes and beliefs have changed. Data collection is ongoing sampling from a nationally representative pool of 8000 law enforcement professionals. Results assess the extent to which law enforcement have been trained in evidence-based practices, and currently endorse evidence-based practices (e.g., asking open-ended questions) compared to practices shown to cause false confessions (e.g., lying about evidence). We also examine whether officers are more aware of the potential for false confessions than 15 years ago and the extent to which they use technology as recommended by researchers (e.g., video recording of interviews).

Authors

• Laure Brimbal, Texas State University

• Sean Patrick Roche, Texas State University