NCJ Number
143259
Journal
Royal Canadian Mounted Police Gazette Volume: 55 Issue: 4 Dated: (1993) Pages: 13-16
Date Published
1993
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Most information police officers obtain during investigations comes from verbal data supplied by witnesses, victims, and crime suspects, and the accuracy and reliability of what people say during the course of making statements were investigated in this field research project.
Abstract
The project was conducted from 1989 through 1991 to collect verbal information from people during pretest interview phases of criminal issue polygraph examinations. The author theorized that certain forms of verbal evasion were indirect lies and represented direct symptoms of deception. A total of 100 males and females suspected of various crimes participated in the research. They were asked to write statements about what happened and were then orally interviewed concerning the information they supplied. Of the 100 subjects, 52 failed and 48 passed; 370 evasive responses to inquires were documented. The 52 deceptive persons provided 322 of the 370 evasive responses. Truthful subjects exhibited some verbal evasion, but their evasion was not directed toward the relevant issue inquiries. Some important issue-related questions had to be asked as many as four times before nonevasive responses were given by deceptive persons. None of the truthful subjects gave evasive responses more than twice to control or nonrelevant issue questions. Procedures to follow when questioning subjects and evaluating their responses are described, and the findings of sociopath research are noted.