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Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

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Leo, R. A. (1992). “From Coercion to Deception: The Changing Nature of Police<br />

<strong>Interrogation</strong> in America.” Crime, Law and Social Change 18, 35-59.<br />

Over the past 50 years, methods of police interrogation have shifted<br />

from the use of physical coercion to psychological deception. Coercive<br />

interrogation, or the “third degree,” is characterized by physical<br />

violence, torture, duress and threats of harm. Deceptive interrogation<br />

includes misrepresenting the interrogation as an interview; downplaying<br />

the seriousness of offenses; playing sympathetic roles to manipulate<br />

suspects; offering psychological excuses or moral justifications for<br />

actions; making promises; concealing the interrogator’s identity; and<br />

fabricating evidence. Leo describes and explains the changes in police<br />

interrogation as driven by police professionalization, changing public<br />

attitudes, and court-driven legal doctrine.<br />

Leo, R. A. (1996). “Inside the <strong>Interrogation</strong> Room.” The Journal of Criminal<br />

Law and Criminology 86 (2), 266-303.<br />

Based on fieldwork involving 182 cases, this study describes and<br />

analyzes police interrogation practices in the U.S. criminal justice<br />

system. Findings indicate that the number of interrogation tactics<br />

employed and the length of the interrogation contribute to successful<br />

interrogation. The most successful tactics include appealing to the<br />

suspect’s conscience; identifying contradictions in the suspect’s<br />

story; using praise or flattery; and offering moral justifications or<br />

psychological excuses. Successful interrogations are defined as those<br />

interrogations that elicit incriminating information from suspects.<br />

Ofshe, R. J. (1989). “Coerced Confessions: The Logic of Seemingly Irrational<br />

Action.” Cultic Studies Journal 6 (1), 1-15.<br />

An expert in false confessions, Ofshe uses the case study of Tom<br />

Sawyer, a man coerced into confessing to murdering his neighbor<br />

in 1986, to illustrate how police can manipulate certain vulnerable<br />

suspects into confessing to and even believing they have committed<br />

crimes of which they have no memory and which evidence proves they<br />

could not have committed.<br />

Ofshe, R. J., and Leo, R. A. (1997). “The Social Psychology of Police<br />

<strong>Interrogation</strong>: The Theory and Classification of True and False<br />

Confessions.” Studies in Law, Politics and Society 16, 189-251.<br />

Ofshe and Leo, leading researchers in false confession, present a socialpsychological<br />

model of police interrogation that describes both tactics<br />

that interrogators use to influence the interrogation and factors that<br />

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