How crass, here in the US we merely call it the DARE program.
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From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, April 3, 2016 10:16 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Why Are K-12 School Leaders Being Trained in
Coercive Interrogation Techniques?
The worm turns!
I can remember the day when Americans were shocked to learn, via our national
media, that in Russia, Communist Youth were encouraged to spy on, and report on
their parents.
Ah, those were the good old days!
Carl Jarvis
On 4/1/16, S. Kashdan <skashdan@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Why Are K-12 School Leaders Being Trained in Coercive Interrogation
Techniques?
By Kali Holloway [1]
AlterNet [2], March 31, 2016
http://www.alternet.org/print/education/why-are-k-12-school-leaders-be
ing-trained-coercive-interrogation-techniques
One of America’s great paradoxes (or perhaps hypocrisies) is its claim
to be
a global beacon of freedom, even as it jails more of its citizens
[3]--by population percentage and in raw numbers--than any other
country in the world. This tendency toward suspicion,
hyper-enforcement and punishment is so pervasive it even trickles down
to our kids. CNN cites [4] a National Center for Education Statistics
report that finds 43 percent of U.S. public
schools have some form of security personnel patrolling their halls
and grounds, a figure that rises to 63 and 64 percent, respectively,
in public middle and high schools.
In addition to the school resource officer, the over-policing of
American society has now given rise to a new figure: the
educator-interrogator.
As the Guardian [5] noted last year and the New Yorker [6] discussed
recently, school administrators are increasingly being trained as
interrogators to extract confessions from students for so-called
"crimes"--most often, minor offenses from schoolyard scuffles to
insubordination. Instruction in the interrogation arts is provided by
John E. Reid and Associates, a global interrogation training firm [7]
that contracts with police departments, armed services divisions and
security companies around the country. According to the New Yorker,
the company has taught its patented "Reid Technique" to hundreds of
school administrators in
eight states. That training may be leading to an increasing number of
students 'fessing up, even when they have nothing to confess to.
As the New Yorker notes, "like the adult version of the Reid
Technique, the
school version involves three basic parts: an investigative component,
in which you gather evidence; a behavioral analysis, in which you
interview a suspect to determine whether he or she is lying; and a
nine-step interrogation, a nonviolent but psychologically rigorous
process that is designed, according to Reid’s workbook, ‘to obtain an
admission of guilt.’"
Reid’s methods are built on what Bloomberg [8] writer Drake Bennett
calls "the twin poles of interrogation styles: ‘minimization’ and
‘maximization.'"
Forms of coercion that correspond, roughly, to "good cop, bad cop."
Minimization plays down the significance of the crime and offers
potential excuses for it--"you just meant to scare her" or "anyone in
your situation would have done the same thing." Maximization plays it
up, confrontationally
presenting incriminating evidence and refusing to allow any response
except
a confession. The two are the most widely used tools in the American
police
interrogator toolkit.
The New Yorker spoke with Jessica Schneider, an attorney at the
Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, who attended
one of Reid’s educator-focused training sessions early last year. The
instruction included
a run-down of telltale body language signs indicating a student--or as
they
were referred to in the session, suspect or subject--is lying.
Many of these purported indicators can be found in Reid’s Criminal
Interrogation and Confessions [9]. The list includes [10] "closed,
retreated
posture" ("crossed arms...reflect decreased confidence or lack of
emotional
involvement"), "constant forward lean" ("a controlling and defensive
posture") and "frozen and static" ("the subject who is so intent on
not incriminating themselves...may, essentially ‘shut down’ nonverbally").
Interrogators are cautioned to look for poker-like deception
"tells"--hand wringing, scratching, wiping sweat, knuckle popping. An
anxious liar, according to the Reid Technique, is a squirmy liar.
One of the many problems with this approach is that it’s notoriously
fallible. Typically nervous behaviors are not surefire indicators of
guilt,
mostly because there’s no universal litmus test for lying. Bennett
points to
a 2003 study [11] from the Universities of Virginia and
Missouri-Columbia which found that many of the behaviors associated
with lying don’t necessarily tell us anything at all. "Behavioral cues
that are discernible by human perceivers are associated with deceit only
probabilistically,"
researchers wrote. "To establish definitively that someone is lying,
further
evidence is needed."
In other words, there is no definitive liar’s pose. TV police
procedurals and cop movies get it wrong all the time, and when they
expect similar results, so do real-life interrogators.
Minimization and maximization interrogation methods, like those used
by Reid
and others, are good at yielding confessions. But an increasing number
of experts suggest that in far too many cases, those confessions are
false, resulting from a blend of fear and coercion. Psychologist
Melissa Russano devised a study that found the Reid Technique often
produces false admissions of wrongdoing in innocent subjects. "Guilty
people are more likely to confess," Russano told Bennett [8]. "The
problem is, so are innocent people."
That was certainly true in the case of Juan A. Rivera [12], who in
1993 was
convicted to life in jail for the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.
After serving 20 years for a crime he didn’t commit, Rivera sued a
number of
law enforcement agencies and other organizations for $20 million, a
figure he was granted in an out-of-court settlement. John E. Reid and
Associates paid [13] $2 million of that sum. The false confessions of
the Central Park
Five [14], who were all teenagers at the time of their arrests, were
also likely obtained using Reid-derived methods. It’s no wonder the
U.S. Supreme
Court has written that [15] "mounting empirical evidence" proves that
certain forms of interrogation "can induce a frighteningly high
percentage of people to confess to crimes they never committed."
Another glaring issue is that children and adolescents are often
easily influenced and compliant toward authority figures. They’re easy
to intimidate and coerce, and often prioritize immediate rewards
(having the interrogation end; getting to go home) over future
penalties
(suspension/expulsion/etc.)
The Innocence Project, highlighting figures provided by the National
Registry of Exonerations, notes that [16] "in the last 25 years, 38
percent
of exonerations for crimes allegedly committed by youth under 18 years
of age involved false confessions, compared with 11 percent for
adults." A University of Virginia review of [17] research on the
subject found a study
of exonerations between 1989 and 2004 discovered "42 percent of the
cases of
juvenile exonerees involved false confessions, compared with 13
percent of the cases of adult exonerees. Among the youngest of these
juvenile exonerees
(12- to 15-year-olds), 69 percent confessed to homicides and rapes
that they
did not commit."
A 2013 American Prospect [18] piece titled "Teacher, May I Plead the Fifth?"
cites yet another example:
In a 2012 study of interrogations of around 300 juveniles charged with
felonies in Minnesota--the largest such empirical study
available--University of Minnesota law professor Barry Feld found
that, after suspects waived their Miranda rights, officers used
maximization techniques in 69 percent of cases and minimization techniques in
15 percent.
Seven percent of all the interrogations studied were performed in
schools...In the Minnesota study, 93 percent of juveniles gave [their
Miranda rights] up. Juveniles waive at such high rates either because
they do not understand the warning, do not grasp the gravity of their
situation,
want to tell their side of the story, or are terrified, says Feld.
After they start to talk, confessions almost always follow (88 percent
of the time
in the Minnesota study), making the state’s case easy to put together
and often leading to a quick plea bargain.
These issues are particularly relevant in schools, where protocols
such as reading kids their Miranda rights and securing authority for
searches don’t
apply.
There's also the highly important question of how transforming school
administrators into interrogators informs their view of students. A
2009 study cited by the New Yorker suggests that among police,
training in the Reid Technique skewed perceptions of juveniles, making
them appear more adult and less trustworthy. University of Virginia
psychologists reported that "Reid-trained police were less aware of
the developmental differences between adolescents and adults than
police who did not receive the training." The researchers also found
that officers trained in the Reid Technique "tended to believe that
adolescents were just as capable as adults
of withstanding psychologically coercive questioning, including deceit."
That's not a particularly surprising outcome to casting every student
as a potential criminal. If even well-trained law enforcement
personnel have their ideas about minors shifted in this way, imagine
the likely impact interrogation training has on school administrators.
If all this isn’t enough to show how problematic interrogations in
schools are, consider how the practice contributes to the
school-to-prison pipeline,
a cluster of education policies that combine to deliver
students--overwhelmingly poor, African American, Latino, or coping
with physical and mental disabilities--directly from schools to jails.
Zero-tolerance policies, which criminalize and disenfranchise already
vulnerable students, have resulted in an unprecedented rise in
suspensions and expulsions. The Vera Institute of Justice finds that
[19] around the country, the number of high school students suspended
or expelled each academic year increased "from one in 13 in 1972-'73
to one in nine in 2009-'10"--a nearly 40 percent rise.
From preschool [20] throughout their years of schooling, black and
Latino [21] students are more [22] likely to be punished in [23] this
way. Though schools have multiple options for disciplining students,
under zero tolerance they often resort to the harshest available,
despite evidence [24]
that interventions such as counseling yield better results for student
health than criminalization. From the Vera report [25]:
A rigorous and detailed study of students in Texas published in 2011
by the
Council of State Governments and the Public Policy Research Institute
at Texas A&M University shows how the culture of zero tolerance became
so pervasive in that state that harsh punishments are meted out even
when they
are not strictly required. Twelve researchers tracked every student
who entered seventh grade in 2000, 2001, and 2002 for six years. They
found that
more than half (60 percent) were suspended or expelled at some point
in middle or high school. Moreover, the majority of those suspensions
and expulsions appear to be for offenses that did not involve
behaviors that fell within the parameters of the state of Texas
zero-tolerance mandate; instead, they were simple violations of the
school’s code of conduct, such as using tobacco or acting out in ways that
teachers find to be disruptive.
In other words, school administrators chose to use harsh punishments
even when they had the discretion to do otherwise.
Considering that a 2012 study [26] from Johns Hopkins found that a
single suspension in ninth grade potentially doubles the chances a
student will drop out, the stakes are incredibly high.
In 2014, the Obama administration [27] suggested teachers and schools
abandon zero-tolerance policies and consider less extreme actions.
Even at the highest levels, there’s new recognition that turning
schools into prisons simply isn’t working, and neither is turning
educators into interrogators. Instituting low-grade forms of
school-sanctioned terror just
creates a culture of mutual distrust and antipathy and ensures that
the first lesson kids learn in school is one rooted in fear.
Kali Holloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and
culture at AlterNet.
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mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Why Are K-12 School ;
Leaders
Being Trained in Coercive Interrogation Techniques? [28]
[29]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/education/why-are-k-12-school-leaders-being-tr
ained-coercive-interrogation-techniques
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/kali-holloway
[2] http://alternet.org
[3]
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/40-reasons-our-jails-and-pri
sons-are-full-black-and-poor-people
[4]
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/27/us/south-carolina-school-resource-office
rs/
[5]
http://www.alternet.org/education/adult-interrogation-tactics-schools-
are-turning-principals-police-officers
[6]
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/why-are-educators-learning-how
-to-interrogate-their-students
[7] http://reid.com/
[8]
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-dark-science-of-interrogation/
[9]
http://www.amazon.com/Criminal-Interrogation-Confessions-Fred-Inbau/dp
/076379936X
[10]
https://books.google.com/books?id=BFsnebyfrMIC&pg=PA125&lpg=PA
125&dq=Reid%E2%80%99s+Criminal+Interrogation+and+Confessions+%E2%8
0%9Cclosed,+retreated+posture%22&source=bl&ots=kFdX1DPzyf&
sig=bzUcvrsTmmBv7R78CFZGT-wrTac&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3kY
Pp9ubLAhXMFR4KHaC3BAsQ6AEIJDAB#v=onepage&q=Reid%E2%80%99s%20Crimin
al%20Interrogation%20and%20Confessions%20%E2%80%9Cclosed%2C%20retreate
d%20posture%22&f=false
[11]
http://smg.media.mit.edu/library/DePauloEtAl.Cues%20to%20Deception.pdf
[12]
http://www.innocenceproject.org/cases-false-imprisonment/juan-rivera
[13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Rivera_(wrongful_conviction)
[14] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/09/the-interview-7
[15] http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-10441.pdf
[16]
http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/2013/false-co
nfessions-more-prevalent-among-teens
[17]
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7062342_Testimony_and_interro
gation_of_minors_Assumptions_of_immaturity_and_morality
[18] http://prospect.org/article/teacher-may-i-plead-fifth
[19]
http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/zero-toler
ance-in-schools-policy-brief.pdf
[20]
http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/21/292456211/black-pres
choolers-far-more-likely-to-be-suspended
[21]
http://www.bustle.com/articles/12127-black-latino-students-more-likely
-to-be-suspended
[22]
http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/racial-disproportionality-in-school-dis
cipline-implicit-bias-is-heavily-implicated/
[23]
http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/new-data-us-department-education
-highlights-educational-inequities-around-teache
[24]
http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-school-police-20151130-story.
html
[25]
http://www.vera.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/zero-toler
ance-in-schools-issue-brief.pdf
[26]
http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/resources/projects/center-for-civil
-rights-remedies/school-to-prison-folder/state-reports/sent-home-and-p
ut-off-track-the-antecedents-disproportionalities-and-consequences-of-
being-suspended-in-the-ninth-grade/balfanz-sent-home-ccrr-conf-2013.pd
f
[27]
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/obama-administration-recommends-en
ding-zero-tolerance-policies-in-schools/
[28] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Why Are K-12 ;
School Leaders Being Trained in Coercive Interrogation Techniques?
[29] http://www.alternet.org
