A lot of innovations in the field of investigations have been and are still being developed to better solve crimes and make offenders accountable. Despite all the progress thus far, nothing quite matches up to traditional detective work and forensic interview skills that examine the subject’s verbal cues and body language for possible indicators of guilt and deception.
Ray Nash is back at the Justice Clearinghouse to discuss behavioral leakages. Ray is the co-founder of the Inductive Interview System, a non-linear, non-coercive approach to forensic interviewing. Ray has 40 years of law enforcement experience beginning as a police dispatcher and climbing up the ranks to a Police Chief and Sheriff. He is also the CEO of the Police Dynamics Institute.
Specifics of this session covered:
- How lying creates a collision in the brain activity which then creates a cognitive load that may leak out as verbal and non-verbal cues.
- The body’s tendency to maintain homeostasis and how cognitive load creates deviations from the baseline norm which can be detected visually or through polygraphs as liars rehearse their words but not their gestures.
- How indicators of guilt come in clusters, should be considered alongside verbal leakage, and when coupled together indicates a strong probability of deception.
- A rundown of the most common behavioral indicators of guilt that you might see during a forensic interview.
- In terms of how they situate their bodies – whether they sit within the “cone” or lean or face towards the door.
- Hand gestures such as touching the face or the mouth, hand-wringing, grooming or comforting motions, fidgeting, and prayer hands.
- Uncontrollable bodily responses such as nasal drainage, tears, changes in blink rate, and dry mouth.
- Fake smiles or duper’s smiles that indicate something else than genuine happiness.
- Intense facial gestures such as concentrated eye contact, pursed lips, or hard and noisy swallows.
- Out of the ordinary attention to things like lint, dust, and clutter in their body or the surroundings, and cleaning, straightening or maneuvering these.
- Exaggerated or awkward hand, arm, and foot movements.
- Unnatural stillness or locked down barrier position.
- Changes in respiration that can be noticed visually or detected via polygraph.
- Several video case studies are presented demonstrating how behavioral and verbal leakages manifest with the subjects during forensic interviews, and for Rod Blagojevich, during his press conference.
Questions from the webinar attendees are about:
- The link and differences between the inductive interviewing system and the Reid techniques.
- Valuable resources on body language.
- Applying the principles of behavioral indicators in virtual meetings.
- Whether the same signs of deception or guilt can be observed in juveniles.
- The potential value in watching the video and listening to the audio of forensic interviews separately.
Resources and Handouts
- Resource: Mark McClish and Statement Analysis
- Resource: Wicklander-Zulawksi – Forensic Interviewing
- Book: Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception by Pamela Meyer
- Ted Talk: How to Spot a Liar with Pamela Meyer
- Other work/resources from Pamela Meyer: https://pamelameyer.com/
- American Psychological Association: False Confessions aren’t Always What they Seem with Saul Kassin (Podcast and Transcript)
- Journal Article: False Confessions by Saul Kassin
- Other work by Saul Kassin: https://www.saulkassin.org/
Audience Comments
- “Well done! Interesting and easy to follow.” — Emilyn
- Excellent presentation! As an Institutional Parole officer, this was very insightful! THANK YOU!!!!!” — Erin
- “The videos describing the behaviors were very informative. The speaker was very knowledgeable.” — Margaret
- “Walking through the videos was helpful to learn the concepts. Thank you.” — Cheryl
- “Behavioral leakages” – video examples and Ray identifying the indicators as the interviews progress. very helpful thank you !!!” — Jeannette
- “The presenter was a great teacher and focused on the topic he was teaching. Some other presenters spend more time talking about their own contributions to the field or discussing their literature review; as a result, the educational part of the presentation takes away from the application portion. I am grateful for this presenter’s focus on learning and applying the skills taught so I can use them in the field.” — melissa
- “It was that he distilled the principles down to basics so it was easy to understand and begin to utilize right away.” — Michael
- “Amazing presentation. Videos really benefited by demonstrating learning points. Hope to see you in another class. Thank you.” — Omar
- “Ray Nash of www.PoliceDynamics.com offered a lot of new information to me; very helpful tools and observations shared. I found it all very worthwhile, thank you.” — Kelly
- “Great presenter! Really prepared! Great slides and examples!” — Kenny
- “The list of “common indicators of guilt” was very helpful. The video demonstrations were excellent.” — Lukas
- “Working with sex offenders and the general probation population, this skill set is essential for myself and my staff. Being able to verbally describe and name the concepts helps with court documents and supervision.” — Barbara
- “It was excellent information to be used across the board in Law Enforcement. I work for Probation and we talk to clients every day and I have seen a LOT if not all of those indicators over the years. It was great to see concrete examples of it and have names to put to it.” — Joseph
- “Great webinar. I will definitely be looking at my probationers when I am questioning them. This topic really interested me and seeing the videos along with the verbal was great. Thank you for this webinar!” — Leslie
- “I’m a CASA now that I have retired. I have had some training using Mark McClish?? material as an educator, and school administrator to conduct evidence-based interviews with students and staff. This was fascinating. I now work with teen boys mostly as a CASA. I want to sharpen my ability to know when they are lying. This was a great review of some material and an intro to new material. If I wasn’t retired I’d take all your courses to get certified. So helpful.” — Anne
- “Sheriff Nash is very adept on this topic of reading body language to determine if someone is lying. He presents in a way that is easy to follow and the videos he uses is very helpful to identify the different identifying factors on how to read body language.” — Robin
- “I loved the format of giving an overview of the main concepts, and then using the case studies to highlight how the concepts can be used in practice. Ray is an excellent speaker and I liked how he paused the case study videos to give insight. I’d love to see more webinars from Ray in the future!” — Sarah
- “This was one of the best webinars! So much information. Just fascinating! Loved it and really enjoy listening to Ray Nash! He is so informative. I have supervised sex offenders on Probation for most of my 30 year career and I find behavior observation so interesting.” — Devra
