ISU professor studying interrogation techniques

AMES - An Iowa State University professor is leading an international team that aims to change the way law enforcement thinks about interrogations.

Christian Meissner, a professor of psychology at ISU, and his team are in the fifth year of a research contract they were awarded for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's High Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. The HIG is an interagency group created by President Barack Obama's administration and is responsible for interrogating high value subjects.

The HIG also has a research mission, Meissner explained. Five years ago, he and his colleagues applied to a competition and were awarded the five-year research contract.

'The government was interesting in improving their methods of interrogation,” Meissner said, explaining the government wants to move toward an evidence-based approach.

Meissner's research area is applied psychology and he has studied topics related to interviewing subjects and suspects, such as memory recall, facial recognition and getting cooperation. His interest, he said, is in reducing the number of false confessions obtained through some current interrogation methods.

'About 30 percent of wrongful convictions identified by the Innocence Project involve false confessions,” Meissner said.

Currently accepted interrogation methods include using false evidence or lying to the suspect, conducting lengthy investigations and using tactics such as minimization - which has to do with minimizing the action and potential consequences - and maximization, which is the opposite of minimization.

'We did a statistical review and showed that these techniques increased the likelihood of a false confession being elicited,” he said.

Meissner's research looks at the decision-making process and the psychological processes that distinguish true and false confessions. False confessions are generally borne out of a pressure to confess and the pressure of the consequences of those confessions, Meissner said, whereas true confessions come out of feelings of guilt, remorse, accountability or responsibility.

Meissner's team is also looking at effective ways to get a confession. He said a current tactic is to overwhelm suspects with evidence, which can increase anxiety and false confessions. Unveiling bits and pieces of evidence along the way, beginning with weaker evidence and moving to stronger evidence, is more effective and can help identify contradictions, Meissner argues.

'It becomes a very powerful elicitation tool that identifies contradictions,” he said. 'It places the burden on the suspect to reconcile those contradictions.”

The team's research also suggests doing away with using anxiety as an indicator of guilt, as most people feel anxious when dealing with law enforcement, even when innocent.

Meissner said it takes a greater mental effort to lie than to tell the truth, something Meissner said interrogators should exploit. One method would be to get suspects to tell their stories in reverse chronological order.

'Essentially, tax the system and require them to go beyond essentially what they've provided you,” he said.

Meissner and has team have already started presenting their findings to government and law enforcement agencies, including the Air Force Office of Special Investigation and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

'These agencies, I think, are very receptive to evidence-based practices,” he said. 'They're always looking forward to improve their skills. They're committed to reducing the number of false confessions that occur.”