GIST: "About
a year and a half ago, Jessica Schneider was handed a flyer by one of
her colleagues in the child-advocacy community. It advertised a training
session, offered under the auspices of the Illinois Principals
Association (I.P.A.), in how to interrogate students. Specifically,
teachers and school administrators would be taught an abbreviated
version of the Reid Technique,
which is used across the country by police officers, private-security
personnel, insurance-fraud investigators, and other people for whom
getting at the truth is part of the job. .........The
training was led by Joseph Buckley, the president of John E. Reid and
Associates, which is based in Chicago. Like the adult version of the
Reid Technique, the school version involves three basic parts: an
investigative component, in which you gather evidence; a behavioral
analysis, in which you interview a suspect to determine whether he or
she is lying; and a nine-step interrogation, a nonviolent but
psychologically rigorous process that is designed, according to Reid’s
workbook, “to obtain an admission of guilt.”.........Several times during the
session, Buckley showed videos of interrogations involving serious
crimes, such as murder, theft, and rape. None of the videos portrayed
young people being questioned for typical school misbehavior, nor did
any of the Reid teaching materials refer to “students” or “kids.” They
were always “suspects” or “subjects.” Laura
Nirider, a professor of law at Northwestern University and the project
director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, attended the
same session as Schneider. She told me that about sixty people were
there. “Everybody was on the edge of their seat: ‘So this is
how we can learn to get the drop on little Billy for writing graffiti on
the underside of the lunchroom table,’” she said. One vice-principal
told Nirider that the first thing he does when he interrogates students
is take away their cell phones, “so they can’t call their mothers.” The
training included tricks to provoke a response that might indicate
guilt. One was the punishment question: “What do you think should happen
to the person who did this?” Schneider recorded in her notes that an
innocent person will give a draconian answer, such as, “They should be
suspended/expelled/fired.” A deceptive person will equivocate: “That
depends on why they did it.” Another question involves baiting the
subject with supposedly incriminating evidence. For example, you might
falsely suggest that the school had surveillance cameras at the scene of
the infraction and see how the student reacts. At one point in the
workbook, the phrase “Handling tears” appears, with a blank space
underneath for trainees to take down Buckley’s dictation. “Don’t stop,”
Schneider wrote in her notes. “Tears are the beginning of a confession.
Use congratulatory statement—‘Glad to see those tears, because it tells
me that you’re sorry, aren’t you?’ ” Buckley’s only caveat during the
session, according to Nirider and Schneider, was that children under the
age of ten should not be interrogated. “It was pretty horrifying,”
Schneider told me. "........“There’s been a real pendulum swing,” Naomi Goldstein, a
professor of psychology at Drexel University and the director of the
Juvenile Justice Research and Reform Lab, told me. Neither
Buckley nor Schwartz agreed to be interviewed for this article. In an
e-mail, Schwartz said that the I.P.A. has modified its workshop to take
better account of the rights and vulnerabilities of young people,
expanding the portion of the training that deals with what he called
“non-interrogative interview techniques.” Buckley referred me to a
ten-page letter that he wrote to Schneider in February. He emphasized
that the technique is not coercive when used correctly, and that
practitioners take “extreme caution” when questioning juveniles.
Schneider said that this runs counter to what she observed and does
nothing to alleviate her organization’s concerns. “What a lot of
students need is a sense that there are adults in authority they can
trust,” she said. Reid-style techniques, she added, can undermine that
trust. “We don’t think this kind of training should be offered at all.”"
The entire story can be found at:
The entire story can be found at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
