User:Summer Hamdan/sandbox

This is a shared sandbox for the article Interrogation. User:Victoriagonzalez1998/sandbox User:Xela262/sandbox

Summer's Ideas

• Include police interrogations

The talk page said that there should be more of a focus on police interrogations as such interrogations are common and important to be discussed under the topic of "interrogation". I can see that this is a concern as the article primarily discusses interrogation that takes place in the military and has a single section of "good cop bad cop", however, this section does not necessarily pertain to police interrogation. Police interrogations differ from military interrogations in terms of techniques, motives, and goals and should be discussed and explained.

• Making the article more broad

Similarly to what I mentioned above, the title/topic of "interrogation" is a big topic. However, the article seems very narrow as it only focuses on military interrogation. The article should mention other types of interrogation and the techniques within the different types.Summer Hamdan (talk) 16:31, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Victoria's Ideas

• Include information on language/verbal techniques used in interrogation.

The article mentions a short section on "verbal and non-verbal cues" to interrogation, yet only describes non-verbal cues such as gazes and movements. The section should include information on verbal cues and particular language used, or else a new section focused on language should be added. As a whole, the article seems to be focused on more sensational aspects of interrogation such as waterboarding and other forms of torture, leaving out other equally or perhaps more important and prevalent tactics such as language. Not to mention, law enforcement's methods of interrogation probably does not frequently involve using these torture techniques, as someone in the talk page mentioned. Perhaps a discussion of language and law enforcement in the context of interrogation would be an appropriate addition.

• Create a section on police interrogation with information on Miranda Rights, 5th Amendment

The talk page has a thread in which Wikipedians debated over whether to include a section on the Miranda right as it was not relevant to arrests of prisoners of war. However, the Miranda Rights do not need to be related to interrogation done by soldiers as they are still an important aspect of domestic arrests by law enforcement. While they ultimately deleted this section, I would like to re-include it in the context of an added section on police interrogations, as Summer and others in the talk page mentioned. Victoriagonzalez1998 (talk) 18:38, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Alexandra's Ideas

• Include more information about other countries

It is important to include more information about interrogation processes/laws in different countries to broaden the information. Now, some sections seem biased since they are so focused on the United States. However, the Torture section does cover some of the world history of torture. Nevertheless, there is a significant focus on the CIA in the discussion of more present issues regarding torture. This concern of bias is expressed in the Talk page of the article, as referring only to present US practices. Some edits that could be made include adding more subheadings in the Around the world section (there is only information about the United Kingdom and United States). Also, the UK subsection here has sparse information, and the way it is presented is not clear (not to mention the lack of citations). I have found a relevant and reliable article about British torture and interrogation techniques about some of the non-cited information in the Wikipedia article (such as the information about suspects in Northern Ireland).

• Edit some of the sources (more updated and reliable sources)

Currently, some of the sources are links that do not work, or are unreliable sources. For example, in mentioning the ethics of interrogation and torture, the article links to a Washington Post article discussing opinions about interrogation techniques and a relevant film. Perhaps a better source would be a book about interrogation ethics from a reputable author. Xela262 (talk) 03:40, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Police Interrogation

Tactics

Police interrogations in the United States involve the suspect voluntarily giving information when being questioned. Police use several different tactics in order for the suspect to elicit information voluntarily. Interrogations are often presented by the cops in a way where the person in question is not presented as a suspect. Investigators often state that they need to ask a couple questions in order to get more information about the crime committed. Police like to refer to this process as an "interview" rather than an interrogation as this allows the suspect to feel less threatened. The suspect is asked to come into the police station so that the suspect is not around anyone or anything familiar. Getting the suspect on police territory and in a new environment allows for the police to have better control of the situation, including preventing the suspect from resisting the interrogation operations.Once suspects are in the interrogation room, police often begin by asking background information questions and engaging in small talk. This allows for the suspect to feel less threatened which will elicit voluntary responses to the questions. The interrogation continues and questions about the crime are asked. Summer Hamdan (talk) 16:53, 14 April 2019 (UTC)Summer Hamdan (talk) 18:44, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Reid Technique

The Reid Technique is a technique widely used by law enforcement in North America for interrogation purposes. It involves looking for signs of deception as present in the suspect's body language. The technique has been criticized for being difficult to apply across cultures and eliciting false confessions from innocent people.

Maximization and minimization

Police interrogation tactics can be classified into two general categories: maximization and minimization. Maximization techniques involve eliciting information from the suspect by emphasizing potential consequences for refusing to admit guilt, presenting false evidence, or accusing the suspect of having committed the act. Minimization techniques entails minimizing the suspect's hand in the crime and the associated consequences in order to induce a confession.

Linguistic Techniques for Maximization

As a maximization tactic inspired by the Reid technique, presupposition-bearing questions (PBQs) are questions that police use to indirectly gain confirmation from suspects on incriminating information. This is because in answering PBQs one necessarily accepts and confirms backgrounded information in the question. Backgrounded information refers to information that is "tucked" into the meaning of an utterance without being directly stated. For example, during the police interrogation of 14-year-old Lorenzo Montoya in the investigation of the murder of 29-year-old Emily Johnson in Denver in January 2000, police obtained a false confession through PBQs (Gaines 2018). Police transcripts showed that one policeman had asked "It [going inside the car and coming to the murder scene] was a mistake though, wasn't it? Were you high at the time?", with which Lorenzo replied "No!". This question directly asks if coming to the murder scene was a mistake and if Lorenzo was high, which, thus, are the only two pieces of information to which Lorenzo can respond. Neither a "no" or "yes" - which are the only two possible responses - can target the presupposition that Lorenzo was present at the crime scene. Because this piece of information is tucked into the background and cannot be directly addressed, any answer would necessitate accepting the proposition that Lorenzo was present at the crime scene.

Fifth Amendment Protections for Suspects Under Interrogation

Although police can use linguistic strategies to elicit confessions from suspects, they do not have unconditional power to intimidate suspects into providing information. A number of protections exist for suspects under interrogation, including the Fifth Amendment, Miranda Rights, and other legal mandates.

The Fifth Amendment

The Fifth Amendment, which states that one cannot be made to be "a witness against himself", prohibits law enforcement from forcing suspects to offer self-incriminating evidence (Solan and Tiersma 33). For example, upon being asked by the police if one was present at the scene of a crime, one can refuse to respond. However, law enforcement can require that one provide demonstrative evidence through a blood or DNA sample.

The Right to Counsel

Following the [v. Illinois] ruling, the Supreme Court mandates that a suspect under police interrogation may refuse to respond to questioning until a lawyer is present, which is called invoking one's right to seek counsel. The Supreme Court further elaborated on this mandate following the decision of [v. Arizona] by stating that police cannot continue interrogation once the suspect invokes his or her right to counsel, or until he or she voluntarily agrees to continue questioning.

Miranda Rights

As a result of the [v. Arizona] ruling, police are required to read aloud to suspects under interrogation their Miranda Rights afforded to them by the Fifth Amendment, such as the right to remain silent and the right to seek counsel. If the police fail to administer the Miranda rights, all statements under interrogation are prohibited from being used as evidence in court proceedings. Victoriagonzalez1998 (talk) 22:44, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Torture

Torture subheading, taken from Techniques section of the Interrogation article

• Editing bias:
  • Original: The most recent and most prominent instance of the use of torture in interrogation is that of the American Central Intelligence Agency. After the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, the CIA became both student and teacher of torture, propagating torture techniques worldwide to support anti-Communist regimes during the Cold War.
    • New: During the Cold War, the American Central Intelligence Agency was a significant influence among world powers regarding torture techniques in its support of anti-Communist regimes.
• Editing readability (embedding, parallelism in conjunction) for lay audience:
  • Original: The CIA adopted methods used by the Gestapo, KGB and North Koreans from their involvement in the Korean War such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and the use of electric shock, and researched new ideas: so-called 'no-touch' torture involving sensory deprivation, self-inflicted pain, and psychological stress.
    • New: The CIA adopted methods such as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and the use of electric shock, which were used by the Gestapo, KGB, and North Koreans from their involvement in the Korean War. The CIA also researched 'no-touch' torture, involving sensory deprivation, self-inflicted pain, and psychological stress.
      • Separated conjoined clauses into two sentences.
  • Original: Torture also became widespread in some Asian nations and South Pacific nations, in Malaysia, the Philippines and elsewhere, both for interrogation and to terrorize opponents of the regime.
    • New: In some Asian and South Pacific nations, such as Malaysia and the Philippines, torture for interrogating and terrorizing opponents became widespread.
      • Conjoin constituents of same type to process more easily, i.e. "interrogating and terrorizing" (verbs), which was originally "interrogation and to terrorize..." (noun and infinitive clause). Xela262 (talk) 03:53, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
  • Original: After the revelation of CIA sponsored torture in the 1970s and the subsequent outcry, the CIA largely stopped its own interrogations under torture and throughout the 1980s and 1990s "outsourced" such interrogation through renditions of prisoners to third world allies, often called torture-by-proxy.
    • New: After the revelation of CIA sponsored torture in the 1970s and the subsequent outcry, the CIA largely stopped its own interrogations under torture. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it "outsourced" such interrogation through renditions of prisoners to third world allies, often called torture-by-proxy.
      • Separated conjoined clauses into two sentences. Xela262 (talk) 03:53, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Also, improve the source variety and source reliability of this section, as well as for the Around the World section. Xela262 (talk) 02:49, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Around the World

United Kingdom

• Add source: British military personnel were found to have misused a number of techniques during the detention of suspects in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s. Xela262 (talk) 03:53, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

References

</ref> </ref><ref>McLaughlin, Donald J. (1974). Police Interrogation: The Miranda rule.<ref>Victoriagonzalez1998 (talk) 18:49, 31 March 2019 (UTC)