Police Officer Interrogation Tactics:

Adolescent Suspects & Suspects with Mental Illness

Anna Vassallo

Introduction

01

Review of Literature

02

Methods Review

03

Limitations

04

Table of contents

Introduction & Prevalence

01

Over 60,000 adolescents under the age of 18 are in juvenile jails and prisons across the US (America’s addiction to juvenile incarceration: State by State)

Adolescent

Suspects

Suspects w/ Mental Illness

56% of people incarcerated

VS

19% of the general population

(Jame & Glaze, 2006)

• Expectations of guilt can affect police officer questioning style and reveal a Self-fulfilling Prophecy (Hill et al., 2008)

​

• Applying an officer’s Confirmation Bias to vulnerable suspects, they may treat them differently (Kassin et al., 2013)

​

• Officers tend to disagree with research and base their interview style on their own personal beliefs (Adams-Quackenbush et al., 2018)

Review of Literature

02

Third Party Involvement

Motivation to Confess

Adolescents: Risk Levels

Likelihood

Advocates & parents = not consistent (Cleary, 2014)

​

Defense Attorneys = rarely present (Cleary, 2014)

• Interview Length
• Breaks
• Protecting others

​

(Malloy et al., 2014)

Adolescents, overall, are more likely to confess than adult suspects (Feld, 2013a; Pearse et al., 1998).

Adolescents: Interview Tactics

• Language Complexity: police speak to adolescent suspects with the same complexity they used when speaking to both adult witnesses and suspects (McCardle, 2018)
• Negative Tactics: Police often used insulting, threatening, and deceiving the adolescent suspects (Feld, 2006a; Feld, 2006b; Malloy et al., 2014; Winerdal et al., 2019)
• Coerciveness: Officers used less coercive tactics than coercive tactics, but the rates were the same for adult suspects (Cleary & Warner, 2016)

Adolescents: Police Perspectives

Police know that they interview adolescent suspects and adult suspects in the same way (Cleary & Warner, 2016)

Confession Rates

Third Party Involvement

Mental Illness: Risk Levels

• More likely to fully confess (Farrugia & Gabbert, 2020)

​

• People charged with murder that were not criminally responsible due to reason of insanity were more likely to contain a “confession” (Clugston et al., 2019)

Appropriate Adults &

Registered Intermediaries: rarely involved or remained passive

​

(Clugston et al., 2019; Farrugia & Gabbert, 2019; O’Mahony et al., 2017)

Mental Illness: Interview Tactics

• Lack of Special Training: Police report not having specific interrogation training or how to identify mentally ill suspects (Geijsen et al., 2018)
• Positive Tactics: Engaging with the suspect and increasing rapport increased the amount of information gained in an interview (Oxburgh et al., 2016; Farrugia & Gabbert, 2020)
• Drug use: Police officers were more likely to ask about substance use than mental illness during an interview (Clugston et al., 2019).

Mental Illness: Police Perspectives

Police heavily underestimate how many mentally ill suspects they think they interview VS how many they actually interview (Geijsen et al., 2018).

Suspects are viewed more negatively: Labeling Theory

​

(Oxburgh et al., 2016)

More likely to confess

Low Third Party involvement

Similarities

(Clugston et al., 2019; Farrugia & Gabbert, 2020; Malloy et al., 2014; Pearse et al., 1998; Redlich et al., 2011)

(Cleary, 2014; Clugston et al., 2019)

Interview Tactics

Police Perspectives

Differences

• Positive vs negative tactics (Farrugia & Gabbert, 2020; Malloy et al., 2014; Oxburgh et al., 2016)
• Interview style adaption (Farrugia & Gabbert, 2020; Malloy et al., 2014; McCardle, 2018; Oxburgh et al., 2016; Winerdal et al., 2019)

• Accurate VS unclear understanding (Cleary & Warner, 2016; Geijsen et al., 2018)
• Underestimate prevalence (Geijsen et al., 2018)

Method Review

03

Adolescent Suspects

Most articles contained these 3 similar aspects:

Suspects with Mental Illness

Participants: Police & Mentally Ill Suspects

Location: England & Wales

Setting: Online Questionnaire

Participants pt. 2: Arrested Suspects

(Clugston et al., 2019; Farrugia & Gabbert, 2019; Farrugia & Gabbert, 2020)

(Farrugia & Gabbert, 2019; Farrugia & Gabbert, 2020; O’Mahony et al., 2018; Oxburgh et al., 2016; Pearse et al., 1998)

(Geijsen et al., 2018; O’Mahony et al., 2018; Oxburgh et al., 2016)

(Geijsen et al., 2018; Pearse et al., 1998; Redlich et al., 2011)

Similarities: Recorded Interviews/Transcripts

Differences: Location (US vs UK)

Similarities & Differences

(Cleary, 2014; Feld, 2006a; Clugston et al., 2019; Farrugia & Gabbert, 2019; Farrugia & Gabbert, 2020; Feld 2006b; Feld 2013a; McCardle, 2018; Winerdal et al., 2019)

US: (Cleary, 2014; Cleary & Warner, 2016; Feld, 2006a; Feld 2006b; Feld 2013a; Malloy et al., 2014)

UK: (Farrugia & Gabbert, 2019; Farrugia & Gabbert, 2020; O’Mahony et al., 2018; Oxburgh et al., 2016; Pearse et al., 1998)

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Limitations & Future Research

04

Main Limitations

Future Research

• Expand on the diversity of the samples

​

• What happens with police tactics when the suspect is an adolescent with mental illness?

21

Thanks!

Do you have any questions?

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References

Adams-Quackenbush, N. M., Horselenberg, R., & van Koppen, P. J. (2019). Where bias begins: A snapshot of police officers’ beliefs about factors that influence the investigative interview with suspects. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 34(4), 373-380.

America’s addiction to juvenile incarceration: State by State. American Civil Liberties Union. (n.d.). https://www.aclu.org/issues/juvenile-justice/youth-incarceration/americas-addiction-juvenile-incarceration-state-state#:~:text=On%20any%20given%20day%2C%20nearly,These%20rates%20vary%20widely.

Cleary, H. (2014). Police interviewing and interrogation of juvenile suspects: A descriptive examination of actual cases. Law and Human Behavior, 38(3), 271.

Cleary, H., & Warner, T. C. (2016). Police training in interviewing and interrogation methods: A comparison of techniques used with adult and juvenile suspects. Law and Human Behavior, 40(3), 270

Clugston, B., Green, B., Phillips, J., Samaraweera, Z., Ceron, C., Gardner, C., Meurk, C., & Heffernan, E. (2019). Interviewing persons with mental illness charged with murder or attempted murder: A retrospective review of police interviews. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 26(6), 904-919.

Farrugia, L., & Gabbert, F. (2019). The “appropriate adult”: What they do and what they should do in police interviews with mentally disordered suspects. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 29(3), 134-141.

Farrugia, L., & Gabbert, F. (2020). Vulnerable suspects in police interviews: Exploring current practice in England and Wales. Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, 17(1), 17-30.

Feld, B. C. (2006). Police interrogation of juveniles: An empirical study of policy and practice. J. Crim. L. & Criminology, 97, 219.

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References

Feld, B. C. (2006). Juveniles' competence to exercise Miranda rights: An empirical study of policy and practice. Minn. L. Rev., 91, 26.

Feld, B. C. (2013). Behind closed doors: What really happens when cops question kids. Cornell JL & Pub. Pol'y, 23, 395.

Feld, B. C. (2013). The youth discount: Old enough to do the crime, too young to do the time. Ohio St. J. Crim. L., 11, 107.

Geijsen, K., de Ruiter, C., & Kop, N. (2018). Identifying psychological vulnerabilities: Studies on police suspects’ mental health issues and police officers’ views. Cogent Psychology, 5(1), 1462133.

Hill, C., Memon, A., & McGeorge, P. (2008). The role of confirmation bias in suspect interviews: A systematic evaluation. Legal and Criminological Psychology, 13(2), 357-371.

James, D. J., & Glaze, L. E. (2006). Mental health problems of prison and jail inmates. PsycEXTRA Dataset. https://doi.org/10.1037/e557002006-001

Kassin, S. M., Dror, I. E., & Kukucka, J. (2013). The forensic confirmation bias: Problems, perspectives, and proposed solutions. Journal of applied research in memory and cognition, 2(1), 42-52.

Malloy, L. C., Shulman, E. P., & Cauffman, E. (2014). Interrogations, confessions, and guilty pleas among serious adolescent offenders. Law and Human Behavior, 38(2), 181.

McCardle, M. I. (2018). Examining the complexity of police officers' language during investigative interviews with adults and youth. Journal of European Psychology Students, 9(1).

O’Mahony, B. M., Milne, B., & Smith, K. (2018). Investigative interviewing, dissociative identity disorder and the role of the Registered Intermediary. Journal of Forensic Practice, 20(1), 10-19.

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References

Oxburgh, L., Gabbert, F., Milne, R., & Cherryman, J. (2016). Police officers' perceptions and experiences with mentally disordered suspects. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 49, 138-146.

Pearse, J., Gudjonsson, G. H., Clare, I. C. H., & Rutter, S. (1998). Police interviewing and psychological vulnerabilities: Predicting the likelihood of a confession. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 8(1), 1-21.

Redlich, A. D., Kulish, R., & Steadman, H. J. (2011). Comparing true and false confessions among persons with serious mental illness. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 17(3), 394.

Winerdal, U., Cederborg, A. C., & Lindholm, J. (2019). The quality of question types in Swedish police interviews with young suspects of serious crimes. The Police Journal, 92(2), 136-149.

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