Police Interrogation Tactics - learn how they manipulate confessions...

Tune in tonight and learn about The Reid technique... it is a method of questioning suspects to try to assess their credibility, developed by consultant and polygraph expert John Reid. Supporters argue that the Reid technique is useful in extracting information from otherwise unwilling suspects.

Critics have charged the technique can elicit false confessions from innocent people, especially children. Reid's breakthrough case resulted in an overturned conviction decades later..

Critics of the technique claim it too easily produces false confessions, especially with children. The use of techniques that are acceptable in the United States, such as lying to a suspect about evidence, are prohibited in several European countries because of the perceived risk of false confessions and wrongful convictions that might result, particularly with juveniles.

In Canada, Provincial Court Judge Mike Dinkel ruled in 2012 that "stripped to its bare essentials, the Reid technique is a guilt-presumptive, confrontational, psychologically manipulative procedure whose purpose is to extract a confession.

It was discovered in December 2013 that an unreacted copy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation interrogation manual had been impermissibly placed in the Library of Congress and was available for public view. The manual confirmed American Civil Liberties Union concerns that the agency used the Reid technique.

Abuses of interrogation methods include falsely accused suspects being treated aggressively and told lies about the amount of evidence proving their guilt. Such exaggerated claims of evidence, such as video or genetics, has the potential, when combined with such coercive tactics as threats of harm or promises of leniency, to potentially cause innocent suspects becoming overwhelmed.