Law Enforcement Articles

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EYEWITNESS FACTORS

While we all have a strong tendency to think that eyewitness accounts of a crime are very accurate, they may actually be the worst form of evidence.

As study after study has shown, eyewitness testimony is one of the most unreliable types of all evidence.

Therefore, when we are interviewing witnesses, we are sometimes faced with a dilemma: the person being interviewed exhibits truthful signs and “signals”, yet their eyewitness account is dramatically different from other witnesses and/or evidence at a crime scene.

Our natural inclination may be to think the person is lying, but in actuality, they are telling their version of the truth.

Have you ever heard the old axiom “Perception is Reality?”

The following factors all influence eyewitness accounts of a crime:

Weapon Focus - there is a strong tendency to focus on that which presents the greatest immediate threat to the body (Psychological Set).
• This manifests itself in witnesses focusing on a weapon, to the exclusion of everything else.

Cross-Racial Identification & Ethnic Biases -people’s biases play a part in their identification of individuals.
• Ever heard the statement, “They’re all the same” and wondered how it affects you?

Pressure to Choose - witnesses may feel pressured to make an identification by the police or by other witnesses.
• As a consequence, they may rush to make an identification or may exaggerate their own part in witnessing a crime.

Post Event Influences - as a crime scene unfolds, events which transpired after the actual crime (like someone pointing to a running suspect and saying “There he is”) may influence their actual memories of the incident.
• This is very prevalent at accident scenes or public disasters of great magnitude.

The point is that if someone processes information, they process it through their own individual “filters” and what actually makes it to their memories may be dramatically different from the ground truth.

PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
In the process of interview and interrogation, some physiological principles which need to be more fully explained.

The modern Interviewing systems utilize our knowledge of both the psychology and the physiology of the human body in the interview process.

The human body is a complicated system of many processes that are continuously at work keeping essential life functions in balance, or homeostasis.

This balance represents the body at rest, or when not confronted by any type of threat.

Psycho-physiologists have repeatedly demonstrated that a number of very complex factors arise when the body is confronted by a threat.

Remember that the body’s “threat protection” mechanisms do not differentiate between physical and psychological threats.
• Upon the recognition of a threat (either psychological or physical), the body’s self-defense mechanisms are on full alert.
• Immediately, the Central Nervous System (sometimes referred to as the CNS) is activated.
o The CNS is comprised of two different parts, the Sympathetic and the Parasympathetic divisions.
o Chemicals are released and nerve impulses are dispatched which allow the body to properly deal with the task of self-defense.
The body may need to prepare to fight, to run or to hide.
• After the threat has passed, the parasympathetic division of the CNS dumps some counteracting chemicals into the bloodstream to return the body to homeostasis.

An analysis of the physiological and psychological factors that are “in play” in a street encounter reveals a great deal about both the behavior of the suspect and the behavior of the officer.

Later in this article, we’ll look at some factors that may be applicable in a typical street encounter between an officer and a violator.
Read the rest…

A measure of truth

1/21/2008 2:41:34 PM
Daily Journal

By Danza Johnson
Daily Journal
TUPELO – Cheating a polygraph test is easier said than done.

After being hooked up to the polygraph and asked to answer a simple question, which I failed, this reporter is a believer that the Law and Order version of taking a polygraph test is nothing like the real deal.

Deputy State Fire Marshal and licensed polygraph examiner Mike Ivy has been administering criminal specific polygraph tests for the state and Lee County for more than seven years. Ivy said in real life, a polygraph test can’t be done before the commercial break.

“It is nothing like it is portrayed on television,” said Ivy. “You just don’t sit down and fire questions at an unsuspecting suspect and the results come in to tell you whether a person is lying or not. One test takes about two hours and the suspect knows exactly what’s going on.”

In fact, Ivy said it is procedure to go over the questions and how the test works with the suspect before they are hooked up to the polygraph. And it doesn’t actually record lies, according to Ivy, but it records physiological data that can determine weather a person is being honest or not.

“We monitor blood pressure, pulse rate, respiration and the opening and closing of the sweat glands,” said Ivy. “You can’t turn these things on and off when you want to, so when you are not telling the truth, those areas will increase.”

After doing some Internet research on how to beat the polygraph test, I thought I had it all figured out. A list of counter measures like contracting of the sphincter muscles to cause yourself pain was supposed to be an easy way to throw the test off. Ivy agreed that causing pain to yourself would indeed throw the test off – that is if a sensitivity pad wasn’t recording your every move. That plan failed.

After the machine caught me in a simple lie, I was convinced of its accuracy.

Even though Ivy said the polygraph test is very accurate, it’s not perfect and that’s one reason they aren’t admissible in court, according to Jerry Crocker, Lee County investigator for the District Attorney’s office. Crocker is also a licensed polygraph examiner.

“If it were 100 percent we wouldn’t need trials or juries,” said Crocker. “The machine puts out the data, but people read, and whenever you’re dealing with people there is a chance for error.”

There biggest use is helping to investigate crimes, according to Ivy. He said the test can help investigators rule out witnesses and things to that nature on the investigative side.

Lying Is Exposed By Micro-Expressions We Can’t Control

Research into tiny muscle movements proves useful in anti-terror
investigations

BUFFALO, N.Y. — When trying to lie your way through any situation, keep a tight rein on your zygo maticus major and your orbicularis oculi.

They’ll give you away faster than a snitch.

So says social psychologist Mark Frank, whose revolutionary research on human facial expressions in situations of high stakes deception debunks myths that have permeated police and security training for decades.

His work has come to be recognized by security officials in the U.S. and abroad as very useful tool in the identification and interrogation of terrorism suspects.

By applying computer technology to the emotion-driven nature of nonverbal communication, Frank, a professor of communication in the School of Informatics at the University at Buffalo, has devised methods to recognize and accurately read the conscious and unconscious behavioral cues that suggest deceit.

His research already is employed by investigative bodies around the world and, Frank says, “It can be applied to the training of security checkpoint personnel to help them identify and decode ‘hot spots,’ the subtle conversational cues and fleeting flashes of expression that betray buried emotions or suggest lines of additional inquiry.”

Frank notes that a large body of prior research has elaborated and sharpened Darwin’s observations about the evolutionarily-derived nature of emotion and its expression.

In fact, Frank’s mentor during his post-doctoral years at the University of California, San Francisco, was Paul Ekman, the world’s foremost expert in reading facial expressions. Ekman
conducted extensive cross-cultural research and found that a wide range of facial expressions related to specific emotions are identical from culture to culture.

He found that subjects’ tics, furrows, smirks, frowns, smiles and wrinkles as they emerge in assorted combinations offer surprisingly accurate windows to the emotions.

“Fleeting facial expressions are expressed by minute and unconscious movements of facial muscles like the frontalis, corregator and risorius,” Frank says, “and these micro-movements,
when provoked by underlying emotions, are almost impossible for us to control.”

Ekman and his colleague Wallace Friesen came up with a numbering system for all of these movements: for example, left and right eyebrows up is 1; down, 2; eyebrows pulled together, 4; upper eyelid raised, 5, and so on and related them to expressions of various emotion that are found the world over.

Building on their research, Frank has identified and isolated specific and sometimes involuntary movements of the 44 human facial muscles linked to fear, distrust, distress and other emotions related to deception.
Read the rest…

Currently, there are several television and radio shows aired which depict polygraphs as a fun, entertaining novelty.

I see polygraphs being portrayed as omnipotent and akin to star-gazing, able to tell the future.

As a polygraph examiner, I feel compelled to dispel the myths surrounding the current carnival-like atmosphere of the polygraph programs.

One such show asked questions of the person being “examined” such as “If my daughter gained 200 pounds, would you still love her” and “Do you consider yourself to be a good husband” and my personal favorite “Have you ever even thought about cheating on me?“

With the popularity of these types of programs, coupled with the entertainment industry’s well-documented penchant for producers copying each other’s work, we expect to see more shows such as these cropping up in time for the next ratings war.

Now, entertainment is entertainment and real life is real life. What is being portrayed in the media is absolutely unlike what actually occurs in modern, professional polygraph examinations. For example:

* Polygraphs do not test a person’s hopes, wishes or desires. (”Do you wish your wife would drop dead?“)
* Polygraphs do not test acts which may or may not occur in the future (”If my daughter gains 200 lbs, will you still love her“)
* Polygraphs are not meant to test opinions (”Do you consider yourself to be a good husband?“)
* Polygraphs are not meant to test intent (”When you told that girl you loved her, did you mean it?“)

What polygraphs excel at is testing specific acts already committed.

For example, polygraphers would never test someone who thinks they might commit a crime in the future: the proper test would be to test someone to see if they had already committed a specific criminal act.

To people watching media-enhanced shows about the polygraph examination process, the difference between wanting to commit a crime and committing a crime may be insignificant, but it is crucial to the successful, accurate administration of the polygraph examination.

My fear is that by trivializing polygraphy, the general perception amongst the populace will be that polygraph examinations are some kind of parlor trick.