No abstract

This study examined responses to a self-report questionnaire on interviewing techniques administered to 291 incoming adult male prison inmates across Japan who were convicted of murder, robbery, arson, rape, forcible indecency, or kidnapping. The questionnaire focused on interrogations that led to confessions. Four interview styles (Evidence-confrontational, Relationshipfocused, Undifferentiated-high, and Undifferentiated-low) were identified. For prisoners who had already decided to confess before their interrogation, interview styles had no effect on the tendency to confess. However, when prisoners were undecided about confessing or had previously decided to deny allegations, the Relationship-focused and Undifferentiated-high interview styles were associated with confessions. Furthermore, prisoners who experienced Relationship-focused interviews were more likely to provide previously undisclosed information to the police.

Abstract

Recently, several studies in Western countries have experimentally investigated interviewing techniques designed to elicit true confessions from guilty suspects and to minimize false confessions by innocent suspects. This study was the first to explore these issues in Japan, with special focus on a rapport-based approach using a modified version of the experimental paradigm devised by Russano, Meissner, Narchet, and Kassin (2005). Experienced police officers interviewed 234 20-to 50-year-old male participants to ascertain whether they broke an experimental rule during a problem-solving session. Among 114 guilty participants (i.e., those who broke the experimental rule), 74 confessed to cheating, whereas none of the innocent participants (i.e., those who did not break the rule even though a confederate attempted to get them to do so) falsely confessed. Further analyses showed that guilty participants who were interviewed using a relationship-focused approach that emphasized rapport building were more likely to confess than those in a control condition; the presence of a camera had no effect on the difference between the 2 interview conditions. Furthermore, there were no significant interviewing style differences in the participants' perceptions of fairness or suggestiveness.

Although many studies have been conducted on behavioral profiling of homicide offenders, none of these have empirically shown that this technique has scientific validity and solid accuracy. Based on data from 839 Japanese homicide cases, we constructed multivariate logistic regression models to infer offenders' characteristics of sex, age, stranger offender, criminal record, single offender, member of organized crime, and residential area. We evaluated validity with a tenfold cross-validation procedure and a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The results indicated that the area under the ROC curve ranged from .70 to .87, suggesting moderate and sufficient accuracy. Such a multivariate approach would be useful to reduce costs and minimize errors in the early stages of an investigation, especially for jurisdictions that possess large homicide databases. He has focused on the use of quantitative research in police psychology. His current research topics include driving behavior under the influence of alcohol, traumatized crime victims, and offender profiling.Kazumi Watanabe, PhD, is the current head of the Investigation Support Section at the NRIPS. Her interests include the role of psychological and psychiatric research in police investigations. She is currently investigating the behavioral characteristics of serial and mass murderers, recidivism of homicide offenders, and the behavioral consistency of serial sex crimes.Kaeko Yokota is a senior researcher in the Investigation Support Section at the NRIPS. She earned her MSc and PhD degrees in investigative psychology from the University of Liverpool. Her research interests include risk assessment of hostage incidents, behavioral consistency of residential burglars, and case linkage of violent, serial crimes.hiroki Kuraishi, MA, is a researcher in the Investigation Support Section at the NRIPS. Before joining the NRIPS, he worked in the Shiga Prefectural Police Headquarters as a forensic psychologist. His current research focus is on the decisionmaking process of residential burglars from the perspective of cognitive psychology.Mamoru suzuki, MA, is a senior researcher in the Crime Prevention Section at the NRIPS. He is interested in psychological research on crime prevention and police investigations. His interests include the cognitive process of fraud victimization, the sexual arousal of sex offenders, and the geographic analysis of serial crimes.taeko Wachi, MPhil, is a senior researcher in the Investigation Support Section at the NRIPS. She is also a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge. The main focus of her current research is on police interviewing and interrogation techniques. She has also investigated the behavioral characteristics of serial arsonists.Yusuke otsuka, MA, is a researcher in the Investigation Support Section at the NRIPS. He is also attached to the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the National Police Agency of Japan. His research interests include the modi operandi of sex crimes, offender characteristics of extortion, a...