RCMP adopts gentler stance on grilling suspects

Canada’s national police force is taking a gentler, less accusatory approach to suspect interrogations amid growing criticism that certain interview tactics used widely by law enforcement agencies can lead to false confessions.

Under the RCMP’s new approach, quietly adopted in December, investigators are encouraged to keep an open mind, resist presuming guilt, and focus more on gathering information than on getting a confession, Sgt. Darren Carr, who led the development of the new interview model, told the National Post.

“When I’m training people, I always say, ‘Less Kojak and more Dr. Phil,’” he said, comparing the gruff fictional 1970s TV detective to the more easygoing style of the TV host and psychologist.

Like most North American police agencies, the RCMP’s traditional interviewing methods were heavily shaped by the Reid technique. Pioneered in the U.S. in the 1950s, and named after Chicago polygraph expert John E. Reid, the technique consists of two parts.

The first component is a non-accusatory interview that involves asking behaviour-provoking questions and assessing a suspect’s body language to determine if that person is lying. If investigators believe the suspect is lying, they move on to the interrogation, which is more accusatory.

Investigators will tell the suspect the investigation clearly establishes his or her role in the crime. They might offer a moral justification for the crime, telling a robbery suspect, “I think you acted out of desperation because of your financial situation.”

They might also present two choices for what happened — both incriminating. “Have you done this many times before or was this just the first time?” they might ask. If the suspect continues to deny involvement, investigators are trained to swat away denials and re-state their confidence in the suspect’s guilt.

These tactics have come under increasing fire in academic papers and in court decisions for being overly coercive. In May, an Ontario judge ordered the exclusion of parts of a statement given by a suspect in a child-sex investigation because of the “very real possibility that (the suspect’s) will was overborne” by a Peel Regional Police investigator.

The investigator offered the suspect, whose mother had operated a daycare, a choice between admitting that he was a “child molester” and he had made a one-time “mistake.”

Later, the investigator suggested unless the suspect admitted it was a mistake, police might have to question every child that had been in his mother’s care.

“This is either gonna barrel into … a huge thing, or this is a one-time situation,” the investigator said.

That’s where the investigator crossed the line, Judge Peter Schreck said.

“Where the accused is given a choice between two versions and there is some suggestion that the consequences to him will differ depending on which version he chooses, the police are treading on dangerous ground,” he said.

In 2012, Alberta provincial court Judge Mike Dinkel offered an even harsher assessment, blasting “desperate” Calgary police investigators for putting a day-care operator, accused of aggravated assault on a child, through a lengthy interrogation and “extracting a confession at any cost.”

“I denounce the use of this technique in the strongest terms possible and find that its use can lead to overwhelmingly oppressive situations,” the judge said.

The RCMP’s Carr said continuing criticism of the technique — “particularly the overly rigid, guilt-presumptive nature of it” — caused the police force to reflect on its practices. It had already ditched the behavioural analysis component in 2004, after realizing officers were no better at detecting deception than the average person.

Now, the RCMP’s new interview standard, influenced by the PEACE model developed in Britain, encourages more of a dialogue between investigator and suspect.

Investigators are trained to ask the suspect to describe what he or she was doing on the day the crime was committed. If a suspect says he went to a coffee shop, investigators might ask for details about the store, the staff and what he ordered.

If there are inconsistencies between his answers and the evidence, the investigator might ask the suspect to explain the discrepancy.

Investigators are taught to resort to a more accusatory interview only if they have compelling evidence, such as a murder weapon with the suspect’s DNA on it. But even then, there is no need for the investigator to become more aggressive, Carr said.

“What I always tell people when I’m training them is an accusation should be a change in the tone of the interview but not the interviewer,” he said.

“There’s something very honest about saying (to the suspect) I’m still open to what you have to say, but I think you did this. Let me show you why I think you did it.”

Under the new model, denials should not be shot down, Carr said. Neither should investigators have to resort to lying or exaggerated claims.

One cautionary tale Carr brings up in training is the 2003 case of a Hamilton man who was accused of breaking into a jewelry store. During the interview, the suspect, Michael Dixon, repeatedly proclaimed his innocence, but the investigator has none of it. The evidence — including video evidence — is overwhelming, the detective said, which was a lie.

“All I have to ascertain is what kind of guy you are,” the investigator said. “Whether … you’re, like, a serial burglar and this is what you’re doing all the time? Or whether this is a one-off thing.”

The answer was neither, as Dixon was riding a bus when the crime occurred. He successfully sued the Hamilton Police Service.

Several police forces, including those in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto and, provincially, in Ontario, have now incorporated at least some form of the PEACE model in their training.

Joseph Buckley, president of John E. Reid & Associates, said in an email the core of his company’s training is to “treat the subject with dignity and respect, and during the interrogation phase maintain a sympathetic and understanding approach.”

Buckley said his company teaches police about false confessions and how to prevent them. He has said it is not the technique that causes false confessions, but detectives who apply it improperly.