False Confessions: The Raid Interrogation Method

Among various arrests, people who are put in jail or prison due to their confession must make them a proven criminal, right? Unfortunately, not everybody who confesses to a crime is in fact guilty. A false confession is an act of confessing to a crime that the confessor didn’t commit. That creates a conflict involving the individual being accused and the trust towards police interrogation. For instance, after nearly eight years in prison, Nicole Harris sued eight Chicago police detectives, alleging that they coerced her confession (Meiser Para.2) The police detectives incorrectly informed Harris in failing “the polygraph test” indicating that she lied about not committing the murder of her son, Jaquari Dancy (Meiser). She felt that there was
Majority of interrogators follow the Raid Interrogation method due to its high effectiveness. The Raid Interrogation procedure involves isolating the suspect into a confined room, confirming that there is no doubt in his or her guilt, preventing the suspect defending his or her accusation, lying about evidence that proves their crime, giving the suspect reasons on why he or she committed the crime, repeating the steps until they agree with you and having them provide the details about the crime (Jackman Para. 8). James L. Trainum is a former detective who spent 17 years in homicide and dealt with interrogations around it (Jackman Para. 3). He didn’t recognize the flaw in the interrogation method until he realized an imprisoned woman that he previously interrogated was exonerated through DNA examinations. He felt an extreme amount of guilt after looking over previous cases revolving around false confession before the DNA test could prove their innocence, but sometimes words have more power that people believe a confession triumphs over evidence (Jackman Para. 4). If you were exonerated through DNA testing, you were considered blessed because not in every situation would you be exonerated since you confessed to the crime. Trainum recognized that there was a problem with the Reid Interrogation method because of how it forces for the answer you wanted rather than the truth. With that
I acknowledge the reasoning behind their argument because the 5th amendment prevents a suspect from self-incrimination, and the Miranda warning enforces the 5th amendment with the right to remain silent to avoid any words from being used against the suspect. Despite the protection of the 5th amendment, the Reid technique is still used against most suspects to obtain a confession, and during the arrest of a suspect, the Miranda Rights can be ignored if there’s no witnesses around. Since the Reid technique is highly endorsed, the only legal protection for the juvenile suspects are the Miranda Rights and 5th amendment; Regardless of the legal protections, studies show that 90% or more refrain from using the rights due to misunderstanding or unfamiliarity of it (Reppucci, Spellman, Allen, and Hurd, Pg.11). Referring back to Trainum’s book, he recognizes the flaw in the justice system in the area of accepting a confession without the doubt of a fabricated one, and how the suspect’s thought process works in those situations. Logically, corruption is a trait that can be in anyone so police officers can ignore the rights of the suspect and force them to admit the crime on the spot without any witnesses. As well, most interrogations aren’t recorded so people can be worn down to the point of coerced