Police Interrogation Techniques and False Confessions

Research Question: When do police interrogation techniques lead to false confessions/false witness testimony, and how can false confessions be prevented?
eBook: Trainum, J.L. (2016). How the Police Generate False Confessions. [eBook Kindle Edition].
This eBook is written more for the general public than for a scholarly audience. However, the book does offer some valuable information and insight into the processes of interrogation used by police, and how those processes could lead to false confessions. Trainum (2016) also explains why it is important to pay attention to police interrogation techniques and how to improve them. The author is a former cop, with almost thirty years of experience. Including an eBook written from the perspective of a police officer offers good counterpart to the scholarly research conducted by those who might not have as much familiarity with the real day-to-day experiences of police officers. This eBook is also different from a lot of the other sources I have located because it focuses on the police perspective rather than on suspect psychological characteristics. It is important to have a grounded understanding of the topic and how research can be applied in real world scenarios. The author is well aware of the need for proven methods of apprehending suspects, but also wants to reduce the numbers of false confessions that only undermine good police work. I look forward to using this eBook during my research into police interrogation and false confessions.
Converting the Research Question into a Thesis Statement:
Now that I have gathered a number of sources related to my research question, I can use the organizational tools to help me come up with a cohesive thesis statement. I realized that the sources focus on police interrogation techniques and how they might impact different population groups differently, with a lot of researchers interested in the juvenile population in particular. Therefore, I thought it would be helpful to focus on not just juveniles but other vulnerable members of the population. It is important to learn how to prevent police from using the Reid method, which can lead to false confessions and wrongful convictions. Yet as the purpose of this research is not related to public policy reform or how to reform police training and organizational culture, I need to focus more exclusively on the psychological dimension of the research question: what psychological and psycho-social processes take place in the interrogation room? What psychological traits make some interviewees/suspects/witnesses more prone to intimidation by police, or more prone to falsely confessing? Alternatively, what police interrogation tactics are linked with higher rates of false confessions? All of these research questions can coalesce into one thesis statement as follows: The Reid Method of police interrogation creates an antagonistic environment, in which persons with high levels of suggestibility may be vulnerable to giving a false confession.