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technque for extracting confessions | Scenario
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bogus science is Statement Analysis. Michael Jackson | Michael Cardamone | Judge
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| Paul Shanley | A forensic
science internet portal is run by Ben Joseph, a Canadian
forensic scientist. He has links to related news clippings and
runs a forum to discuss related issues. | AntiPolygraph:
A website that shows how polygraphs deceive
Polygraphs
During the last week of
February, 2005 Dr. Phil (whom I respect for his common sense
cut through bullshit techniques) featured a family who was distressed
about one son -- Mikai was a pathological liar and stole stuff
from other family members. He also had some problems conforming
to socially sanctioned sexual behavior and had apparently stuck
his hands down the pants of one or more girls. His brothers were
mortified that their brother's reputation as a creep was rubbing
off on them. Along with their father, they expressed sanctimonious
indignation fueled by a whole lot of testosterone. The clincher
in nailing Mikai to the cross was the suggestion he had crossed
the line in horseplay with his infant sister. So much anger was
floating through the show that it was impossible to tell whether
he had exhibited curiosity by examining too closely his sister's
private parts or, if he had in fact gone further. Only his mother
stood by him and even she was torn up about how to continue loving
her son in the face of all the hate directed toward him from
other members of the family. Dr. Phil, who claimed the voice
of reason for most of the 2 part series utterly betrayed the
young man by tricking him into taking a polygraph test and then
marching him off to counseling. Mikai was placed in an unwinable
position.
"The polygraph
is merely a psychological rubber hose, not a way of detecting
deception."
Dr. Phil,
You did a disservice to society
by claiming that administering a polygraph could reveal the certain
truth of whether Mikai is a sexual predator.
During your two shows, you
gave the impression that the polygraph machine in the hands of
a registered polygraphist is a scientifically based test which
was not only accurate, but 100% percent accurate, or, as you
put it, was "foolproof" with regard to whether Mikai
was a sexual predator.
But, later your website posted
a note from you that shows that the polygrapist, Mr Skeeters,
uses the polygraph merely as an interrogation tool, a way to
induce confession. This contradicts his own account of the polygraph
during the show, as a 100% accurate way of determining the truth
rather than being, as he puts it, a "tool" for "an
interrogator".
The public needs to understand
the real nature of the polygraph and how it is used. Those who
promote the impression that it can directly reveal whether a
person is lying or truthful are actually participating in a hoodwinking
of the public and of those who agree to submit to a polygraphic
procedure.
When polygraphers pretend to
"explain" the results of a polygraph administration,
there is one thing they rarely reveal. This is that the judgment
about the polygraphed individual as to whether he or she is lying
or telling the truth depends on the degree to which that individual
is made nervous by two sorts of questions. One class of questions
concerns deeds of which the suspect is accused, while another
class of questions concern deeds that are unrelated to these
accusations, but denial of which is either a partial or total
lie. These two sorts of questions are called "relevant"
and "control" (or "comparison") by the polygraph
industry. The rationale of the so-called "test" rests
on assessing the relative degrees of "nervousness"
elicited by the two sorts of questions. This "nervousness"
is indexed by certain autonomic or involuntary physiological
responses such as blood pressure change and drop in skin resistance
or galvanic skin response (GSR).
The fate of the suspect depends
on this relevant/control comparison. If the autonomic responses,
for example the GSR, elicited by the relevant questions and recorded
by the polygraph are clearly greater than the GSR elicited by
the "control" questions, the suspect is classified
as "deceptive" or lying about the accusation. If it
is the "control" questions that elicit the clearly
greater GSR, a sign of greater nervousness, then the suspect
is classified as "truthful" or innocent. If the GSRs
elicited by the two sorts of questions don't differ much, the
so-called "test" is classified as "inconclusive".
The point here is that there
is nothing in the polygraph procedure that can discriminate between
nervousness caused by anxiety in the innocent in response to
a question, and nervousness caused by fear of getting caught
in a lie in the guilty. So, contrary to the strong impression
you and your registered polygraphist, Mr. Skeeters, gave to the
audience throughout the two shows, the polygraph is not only
not a foolproof test of truth (and, of course, no psychological
test is 100% accurate); it may be completely misleading in the
case of some individuals.
The post-polygraph section
of the Mikai program illustrates that the polygraph is designed
primarily not to detect deception, but to induce confession,
which is precisely the admission Mr. Skeeters made in the note
that you posted after the show that quoted him directly. The
physiological recording that provides pseudo-scientific status
serves only as an interrogatory prop. What we saw was a classic
instance of the "post-test interview" stage during
which time the polygrapher attempts to induce a confession (which
itself, of course, can be used as evidence in any court of law).
Some viewers may say, what
does that matter, under pressure Mikai confessed and the important
thing was to get at the truth in this situation. But it is just
as important that innocent people are not pressed to confess
to acts they did not do on the basis of a pseudo-scientific procedure
that is not more valid than the reading of entrails practiced
by priests, and believed in by many ancient Romans.
By posting the note that hints
at the limitations and practical use of the polygraph, you have
perhaps somewhat undone the erroneous impression of the show
itself. But there is still enough ambiguity in the statement
posted in conjunction with the show, to perpetuate the false
and often very damaging impression that the polygraph can reveal
whether a person is lying or telling the truth, rather than merely
reacting more or less nervously or not to different sorts of
questions.
The conclusions regarding the
polygraph that I have written so far are based on arguments that
do not require knowledge of specific scientific areas that relate
to this procedure. It is possible, however, to provide a more
specialized set of arguments for which my expertise and specific
research interests are relevant. I am a professor of psychology
at the University of Toronto, and my main specialty is psychophysiology,
of which the polygraph is a purported application. My conclusion
regarding the polygraph, as it is practiced in North America,
after some two decades of scientific consideration (my first
publication on lie detection was in the 1986 Handbook of Psychophysiology),
is as follows: "The so-called 'control' question 'test'
polygraph is a technological flight of fancy. It is often used
as a psychological rubber hose to induce confessions. It spreads
distrust while posing as the path to truth."
This is a very harsh conclusion,
but justified in light of the scientific evidence. The details
of this position in scientific terms can be found in a 1996 paper
published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology. The
web reference for this paper is: http://psych.utoronto.ca/~furedy/Papers/North%20American%20Polygraph%20and%20Psychophysiology.rtf
AntiPolygraph.org Home Page > Reading Room
Creepy Dr.
Phil crosses the line
By BILL BRIOUX -- Toronto
Sun, February 25, 2005
WARNING: Watching Dr. Phil
could be hazardous to your health.
The windy Texan went way past
"Get Real" to get real sensational with yesterday's
lurid and disturbing sweeps grabber, Is My Son A Sexual Predator?
On trial, or so it seemed,
was Mikai, a 19-year-old accused of sexually attacking and fondling
young girls, including -- most shockingly -- his four-year-old
sister. He had always denied it.
The boy's grim-faced parents
sat in stony silence as Dr. Phil McGraw ripped into their sweaty
kid. They had written the TV therapist asking for an intervention
(which began on Wednesday's show).
What they got was the full
Church of Phil, a psychological beating that seemed at times
as wildly inappropriate as the accusations. Bottom line, this
kind of intervention should never have taken place on television.
(Proof God agrees: The ending
of yesterday's show was cut short on NBC's Buffalo affiliate
with a bulletin on the Pope's tracheotomy. Dr. Phil also airs
at 5 p.m. on CTV.)
It should be stated that McGraw's
show does foot the bill for any psychological expenses that these
families incur. The intention is to help families in crisis.
Some people are desperate for 15 minutes of TV fame, some are
just desperate.
Yesterday, however, Dr. Phil
completely crossed the line in terms of his belief in his own
power. Things reached a Howard Beale-like level of insanity.
"You can come in here
and you can try and bull---- me all day long," he hollered
at the kid during what was described as a three-hour studio break
(while cameras still rolled). "You can save us all a lot
of trouble if you just want to get real now."
The boy's father finally lost
it. "You better talk to (Dr. Phil) because you're dead to
us," he told Mikai. The mom lamented giving birth "to
a sexual predator."
Where McGraw completely jumped
the shark was when he brought in an expert and strapped the kid
to a polygraph machine. "Have you ever touched your sister's
vagina or breasts?" Makai was asked. Cut to wildly zig-zaggy
lines.
The show featured plenty of
disturbing images (an advisory was posted at the start). Shots
of Mikai at home on the floor aggressively wrestling with his
sister (her face blurred) were shown over and over. Spooky, blue-ish
shots of Makai at odd angles were intercut with clean-cut class
photos. The kid was crisply edited into a criminal corner.
By the end, Mikai broke down
and admitted his guilt. That's when Dr. Phil let loose with this
head scratcher: "Were you telling the truth when you said
you were a pathological liar?"
Mission accomplished, a grim-faced
Dr. Phil took his wife Robin's hand and, as he does at the end
of every show, walked off the set. He promised to stand by and
help Mikai and to protect the little sister.
He said nothing about undoing
the damage this public stoning will surely bring. Mikai needed
this wakeup call and if it stops his abhorrent behaviour maybe
it was worth it. But how do you recover if you are branded for
life as that pervert from the Dr. Phil show?
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Revitalizing the
archives
From 1998 until
2002, injusticebusters was in the throes of identity crisis.
What was it? What were we doing? We grappled with editorial policy
at the same time we were learning the nuts and bolts of building
and posting a website. Once we had a secure, paid site I had
full editorial control, although I talked regularly to Richard
Klassen who was forced to move his family several times and did
not always have access to the internet. Rick's pages: one | two
We posted our
earliest and later actions.
Early versions
of the site can be found on the Wayback Machine.
I began following
other threads to stories of police and prosecutorial misconduct
and the site's character took on another facet: a newsclipping
scrapbook where stories could live longer than they would in
print form. I also began picking up other stories of wrongfully
convicted people. It was an explosion. By 2003 there were over
700 pages. I also had contact with several other people (Don Smith, Leon Walchuk, Monique Turenne, the Vopnis) and kept these stories
going.
It was the
story of the Ross children's treatment at the hands of the Saskatchewan
government which grabbed the attention of The
Fifth Estate.
The civil claim (The $10M Lawsuit as we called it) was only mentioned
briefly at the end of their show which aired in November, 2000.
When Richard
Klassen began to make progress in bringing his civil claim to
court, the government and police defendants alleged he was breaking
the rules of court by publishing discovery material on the internet.
- MacNeil clinic (the document which started it all)
- The Thompson Papers
- Carol
Bunko-Ruys reports
This claim
was absolutely false. However, rather than risk being thrown
out of his civil claim, Klassen undertook before Judge Mona Dovall
to sever all ties with the website.
The court fights:
- Les
Perreaux report
- QB271
These pages have links which
lead to other pages from that era. Now that some of the dust has settled,
I have been going back through the material we had posted in
the early days. In the spirit of keeping the scrapbook alive,
I have been reformatting and placing links. The original material
remains intact. I hope the information, which chronicles our
struggle is useful to you.
The identity
crisis is over. We know who we are --Sheila Steele, March
28, 2005
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
