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The principle objective of police interviewing is to gather relevant information about the suspected or reported crime. There are two types of interview techniques: the Reid technique, primarily used in the United States; and the PEACE model, primarily used in the United Kingdom. Researchers have expressed concerns regarding the Reid technique due to its guilt-presumptive and confrontational aspects, and thus, recommend the use of the PEACE model. False confessions have been associated with manipulative/coercive interrogation techniques and suspects' vulnerabilities in interviews.

The Reid Technique - United States

• Focus is on obtaining a confession rather than fact finding (Leo, 2008)
• Effective in breaking down denial and resistance and eliciting confessions
• Authors of the Reid technique claim an 80% confession rate but has not been empirically validated
• Allowed to present false evidence and minimize the offense
• Two-stage process:
  • Behavioral Analysis Interview: nonaccusatory
  • If the suspect is judged to be lying, the interview progresses to the 9-step accusatory approach: interrogation
    • 3 general phases:
    • custody and isolation
    • confrontation
    • minimization

The PEACE Model - United Kingdom

• PEACE: preparation and planning, engage and explain, account and clarification, closure, evaluation
• Used in UK since 1993 and now being used in several other countries (Bull & Soukara, 2010)
• Focus is on fairness, openness, workability, accountability, and fact finding
• Not allowed to lie to the suspect or present false evidence (Kassin et. al., 2010)
• Always electronically recorded
• Initial phase: planning and preparation for the interview
• Remaining phases: interview process, its closure, and its evaluation

False Confessions

• Potential risk factors for false confesssions (Kassin et al., 2010): young age, mental disorders, suggestibility, compliance, and manipulative police techniques
• Two distinct types of false confessions:
  • Voluntary: result from attention seeking behavior, desire for notariety, protecting the real perpetrator, or underlying psychopathology
  • Police-induced: two types
    
    • Compliant: interviewee is unable to cope with the interrogative pressures and gives a knowingly false confession to escape the stressful situation
    • Internalized: more psychologically sophisticated and result from subtle manipulation of the interviewee's belief in their guilt
    Police-induced false confessions result from 3 types of error (Leo & Drizin, 2010):
    • misclassification error
    • coercion error
    • contamination error

References
Gudjonsson, G.H. & Pearse, J. (2011). Suspect interviews and false confessions. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 33-37.