Until the late 20th century, researchers lacked an empirical understanding of how interviews and interrogations were practiced by law enforcement in the United States. And it was not until the 21st century that Kassin et al. (2007), using a sample of American police investigators, provided a wide-ranging look into police officers’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices about interrogations. The profound changes that American law enforcement has undergone in the past 20 years inspired Laure Brimbal, Sean Patrick Roche, and Hunter Martaindale to conduct a new study, published in Law and Human Behavior, which provides an updated snapshot of police officers’ beliefs, attitudes, and practices about interviewing and interrogations. With their survey of a geographically diverse sample of U.S. law enforcement officers, Brimbal et al. found significant positive trends toward knowledge and practices being informed by the research generated over the past decades on interviewing and interrogation.
The authors surveyed 526 law enforcement officers from across the United States about their practices and beliefs regarding interviewing and interrogation to gauge whether those practices and beliefs have evolved, given the research conducted and training developed over the past 20 years. Brimbal et al. asked officers to report their beliefs regarding rates of true and false confessions and their ability to detect deception, the amount of time spent in the interrogation room, their training experience, interrogation recording practices, and their use of interrogation techniques. According to officers’ responses, the average suspect interview was 1.6 hrs long, with suspects being interviewed an average of three times; these findings were similar to those of 20 years ago. Self-reported lie-detection accuracy was at 74%, slightly reduced from 20 years ago, with more than half of respondents saying that they used available information and evidence to determine veracity. In addition, the officers reported that 26.2% of innocent suspects at least partially confessed to a crime they did not commit. Further, 78% of the officers reported that their agency had a policy in place mandating the recording of suspect interrogations. Whereas Kassin et al. (2007) found that fewer than one in 10 interrogations was video recorded, the law enforcement officers who participated in the Brimbal et al. study reported that almost three quarters of interrogations are now video recorded. Finally, the techniques reportedly most used during interrogations were in line with current scientific understanding, and the most overtly coercive interrogation tactics were those the officers reported using the least.
Although causality could not be determined, these findings suggest the U.S. law enforcement mindset has shifted to a more science-based direction. These changes are congruent with research on the topic and demonstrate a potential increase in awareness of the latest science.