Deceiving suspects about the content of their alibis: consequences for truthful and untruthful suspects

Date09 May 2016
Pages143-154
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/JFP-10-2014-0042
Published date09 May 2016
AuthorMelanie Sauerland,Svenja Mehlkopf,Alana C Krix,Anna Sagana
Subject MatterHealth & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Forensic practice
Deceiving suspects about the content
of their alibis: consequences for truthful
and untruthful suspects
Melanie Sauerland, Svenja Mehlkopf, Alana C. Krix and Anna Sagana
Melanie Sauerland, Svenja
Mehlkopf, Alana C. Krix and
Anna Sagana are all based
at the Department of Clinical
Psychological Science,
Maastricht University,
Maastricht, The Netherlands.
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to test how modifying ones alibi statement interacts with exposure to
deceptive interrogation techniques.
Design/methodology/approach In all, 90 participants walked about a university building for 15 minutes
and either stole an envel ope from a staff pigeonhole (guilty conditi on) or put the envelope there along the
way (innocent condition). Subsequently, participants were asked to provide an alibi for the past 15 minutes.
Guilty and half of the innocent participants were instructed to omit that they had been in the vicinity of
the pigeonholes. The re st of the innocent partic ipants were asked to tel l the truth. Several day s later,
participants were que stioned about six stat ements taken from thei r alibis, three of whic h contained
altered information.
Findings As expected, participants were largely blind to our alterations, with detection rates ranging from
1 to 36 percent. Contrary to cognitive load predictions, detection rates did not vary as a function of
truthfulness. Rather, guilty participants were less likely to detect alterations than innocents.
Research limitations/implications Memory distrust and guilty suspectsaim to keep a low profile might
be possible explanations for these findings.
Practical implications It is recommended that law enforcement officers and other legal practitioners
refrain from using deceptive interrogation techniques and such techniques that can cause inconsistencies in
suspectsreports. Researcher should make it their task to educate these professional groups about the
natural occurrence of memory related, non-deceptive inconsistencies in successive statements.
Originality/value This research uses a new methodology to study the effect of deceptive interrogation
techniques on both innocent and guilty suspects. The findings are relevant for legal practitioners and
researchers.
Keywords Cognitive load, Suspects, Alibis, Deceptive interrogation techniques, Inconsistency,
Interrogation, Interrogation protocol, Investigative interviewing, Misinformation
Paper type Research paper
When being accused of a crime, the presentation of a plausible alibi is of crucial importance for
the suspect. The consequences of being unconvincing in a criminal investigation are grave and
this may be a concern for both innocent and guilty suspects (National Research Council, 2003;
Vrij et al., 2011). In fact, this concern is well justified given the skepticism law enforcement officers
display toward suspects and their alibi statements (Dysart and Strange, 2012; Kassin
et al., 2010b). Alibi distrust is especially high when there is no physical evidence or statement
from a non-motivated other (cf. Olson and Wells, 2004). In reality, however, alibis contain leads or
references to physical evidence in only one of four to five cases (Culhane et al., 2013; Dysart and
Strange, 2012; Nieuwkamp et al., 2016; Olson and Charman, 2012). In an attempt to increase
their credibility, even innocent suspects who fear that the truth may appear overly incriminating,
may choose to alter their alibis, that is, to be partly untruthful (Allison et al., 2012).
Received 31 October 2014
Revised 17 December 2014
Accepted 22 December 2014
The authors thank Henry Otgaar
for his valuable comments on an
earlier version of the manuscript.
DOI 10.1108/JFP-10-2014-0042 VOL. 18 NO. 2 2016, pp. 143-154, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 2050-8794
j
JOURNAL OF FORENSIC PRACTICE
j
PAG E 14 3

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