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Introduction
1: History
2: Do We Even Have a Problem?
3: Types of Confessions and Statements
4: Taking the First Steps
5: Good Police Work or Coercion?
6: Contamination
7: Statement Evaluation
8: Witnesses
9: Cooperators and Informants
10: Plea Bargaining
11: Is There a Better Way?
12: Reform
13: What Lays in Store for the Future
James L. Trainum, a private consultant, retired from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C. and was the Violent Crimes Case Review Project Director- Detective from 2000-2010. He was the recipient of the Marymount University Forensic Psychology Program Award in Ethics in Law Enforcement in 2005, and recipient of the 2009 Innocence Network’s Champion of Justice Award. Trainum has written several articles on interrogations and the creation of Innocence Commissions, committees designed to review alleged wrongful conviction cases. He has been interviewed on the topic of interrogation and false confessions by The New Yorker, The New York Times, and National Public Radio. Trainum has also been quoted in the American Psychological Associations white paper on the topic of false confessions and in numerous other articles and editorials. He speaks at many conferences and other events to talk about the topic of false confessions and interrogation techniques.
In this groundbreaking book on the U.S. criminal justice system,
Trainum, a former Washington, D.C. police detective, argues for
reform of police interviewing and interrogation practices. The
confession is considered the gold standard for law enforcement,
because 'most people believe that they would never confess to a
crime they did not do.' Yet suspects, witnesses, and informants
often feel that they have no other option. Trainum carefully
demonstrates why in an era of minimum sentences, where the
worst-case scenario can be significant jail time, registration as a
sex offender, or even the death penalty, prosecutors have
breathtaking power to hold a person's life in the balance. The best
option for a suspect or witness may be a false confession,
informing, or a plea bargain, especially when a long legal fight
may drain a family bank account, or when a prosecutor offers a
reduced sentence or jailhouse privileges as reward. Without reform,
prosecutors, police, and investigators may soon discover that
'harsh and verbally abusive interrogation tactics that focused
solely on obtaining confessions... not only [contribute] to false
confessions but also to the negative perception of law enforcement
by the public.' Using numerous examples and backed by persuasive
academic research, Trainum proposes a better way that is already at
work in countries with similar criminal justice systems. His book
will hit a nerve with a public newly concerned with abuses of
police power, and hopefully will influence those tasked with law
enforcement and public policy as well.
*Publishers Weekly, Starred Review*
The first step to solving any problem is realizing that it exists.
This enlightening work by retired Washington, DC, police detective
Trainum leaves no doubt that there are complications with false
confessions and police interrogation techniques. Trainum walks
readers through the steps police are taught to use in the
interrogation room and the coercive methods that can lead to
contamination of the interview and false confession. His
explanations are well supported with relevant and interesting case
studies and previous research. He includes information on problems
with statements from witnesses and informants and the role played
by plea bargains and mandatory sentences. After presenting a
thoroughly convincing portrait of the issue, Trainum provides 'a
better way' forward, outlining the PEACE method of interrogation
and reviewing other safeguards, including videotaping of
interviews. His 27 years of experience provide an insider's
realistic, practical view, making this an especially important
addition on the topic. VERDICT Essential for those working in the
criminal justice system. It will also be of interest to the general
public concerned with criminal justice issues and reform, as well
as fans of police procedurals and true crime.
*Library Journal, Starred Review*
[I]f you have an interest in fairness, justice and preventing
wrongful convictions, then the new book How the Police Generate
False Confessions by former Washington, D.C., homicide detective
James Trainum is an important read. It takes you inside the
interrogation room to see how investigators extract admissions from
innocent people, and how the justice system can fix this persistent
problem, seen in high profile cases such as the Central Park Five,
the Norfolk Four and the teenaged suspect from Wisconsin in the
Netflix series ‘Making a Murderer.’... I [Washington Post reporter
Tom Jackman] asked Brandon Garrett, a University of Virginia law
professor who has focused on wrongful convictions, about Trainum’s
book. ‘It is such an important new book,’ Garrett said. ‘For
decades, we have seen false confession after false confession lead
to tragic wrongful convictions of the innocent while serious
criminals go undetected. The courts have done little to respond to
abuses in the interrogation room; if anything they have eroded
constitutional protections, such as the right to remain silent.
Trainum explains that for police, there is another way. Overly
coercive interrogation techniques not only produce false
confessions but they are not good at uncovering good information.
In the U.K. and in more agencies in the U.S., police have changed
gears, turning from psychologically coercive techniques to
information gathering techniques. Trainum and his book are at the
forefront of a revolution in police interrogations.’ Now that’s a
lot better book review quote than mine.
*The Washington Post*
Who could falsely confess to a crime they didn’t do? In this
must read book, Trainum gives us the inside story. He shows how
shockingly easy it is for police to secure a false confession, even
without intending to do so. That confession, though false, may
appear to be highly accurate. Trainum concludes by pointing
the way towards less coercive interrogation methods. The
result will be a revolution in police questioning.
*Brandon L. Garrett, Justice Thurgood Marshall Distinguished
Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law*
This is not a book about bad cops; it is a book about a very good
cop discovering a process for making himself a great cop: beginning
by calmly confronting his own mistakes, using research to
understand their lessons, and then sharing those lessons with the
justice professions. A tremendous contribution.
*James Doyle, Attorney, Boston, MA; author of True Witness: Cops,
Courts, Science and the Battle Against Misidentification*
False confessions are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. Jim
Trainum, a retired Washington, DC, homicide detective, explores the
nature of this problem in his book, How the Police Generate False
Confessions, and discusses how the interview process can be
improved and reformed. Investigators, prosecutors, and defense
attorneys will all benefit from his experience and insights.
*D. Kim Rossmo, Professor, School of Criminal Justice at Texas
State University*
The curtain is being drawn back on the interrogation room, and
America doesn’t necessarily like what it sees. This is being led by
those who are willing to discuss what they know about interrogation
practices and the unjust outcomes that happen as a result. Jim
Trainum is one of those voices, detailing not only issues related
to interrogations and false confessions, but the larger
investigative culture that can make changing this situation very
difficult. The first step to change is admitting you have a
problem. Law enforcement has not come around to this realization.
In this book, however, the problem becomes clear. Through
historical examples and personal experience as a Detective, Jim
takes the reader on a journey through the various ways in which a
false confession can happen, and does happen. In the end, the
reader is left with the realization that what happens in the
interrogation room is in large part a reflection of our criminal
justice system itself. As a result of this knowledge, we are faced
with the choice about whether we want the system to change, or to
remain as it is. In making this decision, the reader comes to
realize that the next false confession that is given might very
well be your own, and that no one is necessarily immune from the
forces of persuasion and coercion that exist in the
interrogation.
*Gary C. David, PhD, Associate Professor of Sociology, Department
Chair; Associate Professor of Information Design and Corporate
Communication, Bentley University*
Blending his career as a decorated homicide detective with his
uncanny academic insights and understanding Jim has given us a book
that addresses the complicated issues inherent in police interview
and interrogations with piercing precision and unique insights.
This is a must-read for practitioners, academicians and anyone
interested in what really happens when cops, suspects, policies and
the law converge in a pressure-filled interview room. Not to be
missed.
*Gregg O. McCrary, FBI, retired*
Others have written books about how police generate false
confessions. Richard Ofshe, Saul Kassin, Richard Leo (Laura Nirider
and I) and many others frequently lecture about the causes and
consequences of false confessions. But it is one thing for social
scientists, academics, and defense attorneys to write and talk
about these things, it is another for a homicide detective to do
so. Jim Trainum's book, How the Police Generate False
Confessions: An Inside Look at the Interrogation Room, may just
turn out to be the most important book on the subject ever written.
I learned more about the way police officers investigate homicides
and the way tunnel vision and confirmation bias leads to
investigative failure from this book than from any other book I
have read. The book puts a lie to so many myths about police
interrogations that I lost count of them all. But it does so much
more. Det. Trainum is not just a critic; he is a reformer, charting
a course for the proper way for police officers to investigate
cases, interview suspects, witnesses and informants and to obtain
reliable information from them. If you buy one book this year in
the area of wrongful convictions, this is the book you should
buy.
*Steven Drizin, Clinical Professor of Law, Northwestern University
School of Law; attorney for Brendan Dassey of Making a Murderer*
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