in this issue . . . The Role of Defense Mechanisms In Detecting Deception   Inundated With Rules   Facing the News Media in Times of Crisis

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   John E. Reid and Associates

   The act of committing a crime is always associated with an emotional state. Most criminals experience some level of shame, guilt or loss of self-esteem. Others primarily experience a fear of being caught. A very few (the psychopath) will experience excitement and thrill. Because shame, anxiety and fear are all undesirable emotional states, the mind will attempt to reduce these negative feelings by using defense mechanisms. A defense mechanism is a habitually employed adjustive reaction designed to reduce unwanted feelings by distorting or denying the truth.

We all use defense mechanisms to cope with everyday guilt and anxiety. If I am late in writing the monthly Web Tip, and consequently experienced guilt or shame, it would not sooth those feelings by acknowledging that I procrastinated and was poorly organized. To reduce my guilt and shame I may utilize any number of defense mechanisms. I may blame my boss for assigning me too many other tasks which did not leave me enough time to write the Web Tip. I may reduce guilt by contrasting what I did to something much worse, e.g., it was only a couple days late, not a whole month. I may forgive my tardiness by forming a belief that others engage in the same behaviors as I do and, therefore, I am no different than anyone else. There are many other possible defense mechanisms, but these illustrate the concept— they all reduce unwanted feelings and are habitually employed. A person does not consciously distort or deny the truth. The mind does it unconsciously.

During an interview, when an investigator questions a guilty suspect about the crime he committed, it can be safely assumed that the suspect has already employed one or more defense mechanisms to help him cope with his crime. The innocent suspect, on the other hand, has no need to reduce guilt or shame associated with the crime under investigation. Therefore, when defense mechanisms are identified during an interview, they should be associated with a guilty suspect. Consider the following examples of responses to interview questions:

Q: Have you ever just thought about forcing a woman to have sex with you?
A: Well, sure. Every guy thinks about that but that doesn't mean I'd follow through with it.

This illustrates the defense mechanism of identification. With identification a subject forms a false belief that others share his attitudes. A suspect guilty of committing a crime would like to believe that he is no different than the majority of the population. The above suspect could be asked, "What percentage of men do you think, at some point in their life, have forced a woman to have sex with them?" A guilty suspect often relates a very high percentage.

Q: Why do you think some people do file a false insurance claim?
A: Maybe to get back at the insurance company for charging such high premiums.

This response suggests the defense mechanism of projection. It can be defined as placing blame away from ourselves and onto someone or something else. The homicide suspect may blame the victim for getting him angry; a burglar may blame an accomplice for talking him into breaking into the home; a robber may blame his addiction to drugs for causing him to have to steal money. Because projection is such a common defense mechanism, the investigator should actively seek information during an interview to help identify who or what the guilty suspect may have blamed for his crime.

Q: What do you think should happen to the person who took this $2000?
A: Well, I definitely think that there should be disciplinary action but I don't think they should go so far as to have the person put in jail unless it was for a very large amount.

When a suspect contrasts his crime to something much worse he is using the defense mechanism of minimization. We all experience some level of relief knowing that something bad could have been much worse. In the guilty suspect's mind, a rape or robbery was not that bad because the victim was not killed. Drug dealers minimize their crime by contrasting the relatively minor drugs they sell to something much harder like heroine. A computer hacker may minimize his crime by contrasting the mere disruption of a commercial web site to breaking into a national security computer and selling information to the highest bidder.

Q: Did you start that fire?
A: No, but I was smoking in the area where the fire started and I have this strange feeling that maybe my cigarette may have accidentally started the fire.

This is a possible example of rationalization wherein a person re-describes the intentions behind his act. Whenever, during an interview, a suspect accepts possible responsibility for the crime in a way that removes criminal intent, rationalization should be suspected. Actual interview examples we have heard from suspects who later confessed include being the person who may have unknowingly thrown away a missing money from an evidence room, a suspect who said he possibly had inadvertent contact with a step-daughter's bare breast when tucking her into bed and a suspect in a hit and run accident who told us he had a vague recollection of maybe hitting something with his car. In each of these cases the guilty suspect reduced considerable guilt associated with his or her crime by accepting possible physical (but not legal) responsibility for it.

Obviously, there are cases in which a suspect may be telling the truth when acknowledging that an act occurred accidentally or inadvertently. A guideline to consider is that the deceptive subject often introduces his responsibility for the crime as a mere possibility. The guilty suspect generally does not come out and say, "It must have been my cigarette that started that fire because it started right where I was smoking and it couldn't have been anything else."

Q: How do you feel about being interviewed concerning this forged check?
A: I feel like I'm being framed for this thing. I don't know why you're talking to me about this. It could have been anybody. Why would I need to forge someone's check when I have my own checking account — tell me that?

The defense mechanism involved in this response is displacement. An emotional tirade, especially when it comes out of nowhere and is not accompanied with supporting nonverbal behaviors, is often emanating from a deceptive suspect. A person who feels guilt or loss of esteem because of something he or she did may reduce that feeling by displacing it with anger directed toward the interviewer. Anger is a much easier emotion for the suspect to deal with than guilt because anger is directed away from the suspect toward someone or something else. Guilt or shame, on the other hand, are directed inward and the best way to deal with them is to acknowledge the truth — something most suspects do not want to do.

In summary, almost every suspect who has committed a crime will reduce unwanted feelings associated with their crime through the use of defense mechanisms. On the other hand, a suspect innocent of committing a crime has no need to reduce feelings of guilt, anxiety, shame or fear of being caught. Therefore, when a suspect's response to an interview question reveals the use of a defense mechanism, it supports the opinion of deception. As with any behavior symptom, it is important to evaluate the totality of the subject's behaviors throughout the entire interview to look for trends and patterns before a final opinion of truth or deception can be rendered with confidence.

 

The Cure is Worse than the Disease American law enforcement has evolved from a relatively simple job performed by relatively unskilled workers to a complex social enterprise performed by highly skilled professionals. In my view, that is the key to understanding the managerial approach required for sustained performance in our police agencies. Unfortunately, the culture of our profession is such that while we use management terminology consistent with overseeing the work of skilled professionals, in practice we all too often continue to manage in a fashion more suited to unskilled workers. The end result is that we try to govern rather than lead, strive to control the workforce rather than use its potential, and attempt to shape conduct by regulating behavior rather than by modeling and instilling values. In many of the law enforcement agencies with whom I’ve worked, the unsettling reality is that many of their problems exist not in spite of management’s best efforts but because of their best efforts. The cures we use to try to address organizational problems often come full circle and are, in fact, the cause of the problems we wish to eliminate. In the medical field, they have a term for this: iatrogenic disease – physician induced disease. I would suggest that the law enforcement mindset encourages iatrogenic management that oftentimes creates the problems our actions seek to suppress. The police culture encourages a short-term orientation that focuses upon suppressing problems in the present then legislating to prevent them in the future. While the sense of this is seemingly clear, the evidence is that this approach, when the SOP of the organization, does more harm than good. Let’s look at why. Law enforcement agencies strive to avoid errors and public mistakes, particularly serious ones that smack of corruption, unprofessionalism, discrimination or any number of other serious ills. That makes good sense. But we need to ask how we best prevent these things from happening. It seems to me we need to begin by asking: “What does a person more easily violate: 1) a rule or procedure, or 2) the trust of someone the person respects”?  Clearly people do not want to lose the respect of someone they hold in high regard, particularly if a direct, meaningful relationship exists between them. In fact, most people simply won’t do it because the personal loss is simply more than they will risk. On the other hand, rules and procedures – particularly when agencies have volumes of them - are rather easily violated for as little reason as personal convenience.  Yet the control mechanism most commonly used by law enforcement agencies is rules and procedures rather than trust and respect. This adds fuel to the fire rather than extinguishing it. Police managers are not the organizational firefighters they see themselves as…they are organizational arsonists. How so? The greater the number of rules, procedures, regulations, and various control mechanisms an agency utilizes, the more the administrative burden placed upon the managerial and supervisory ranks. In my work, I walk through many police facilities and what I see are sergeants sitting behind desks pushing paper for the better part of their day. Of course, in the view of upper management that paper is necessary because, as we all know, we need to control this place! But that control is an illusion. We have already established that rules are more readily violated than relationships. How, though, does a supervisor establish a trusting, mutually respectful relationship with subordinates? The answer is simple: face to face, eye to eye, working together, role modeling, communicating, coaching, guiding, and helping. Relationships simply don’t develop from behind a desk far removed from day to day activity.  I would suggest that one of the most critical roles for law enforcement management – but one that is virtually ignored – is to recognize that the visibility of supervisors to their subordinates is absolutely critical to the professional integrity of our organizations. Yet the unintended outcome of our cumulative managerial actions accomplishes precisely the reverse. What do we do? The most important factor is to reorganize in a manner – either formally or informally – that creates time for supervisors. Most supervisors do not choose to sit behind a desk pushing paper, organizational procedures require them to do that, but they can’t change those themselves. Management has to have the courage to amend those administrative procedures so that more supervisors’ time is spent leading rather than writing. However, in many organizations the administrative burden is worsening rather than improving because they continue trying to control by legislating rather than trying to control by trust and respect. This is management-induced disease at its finest – by trying to treat the disease, they worsen the disease. We simply don’t see the long-term impacts of our short-term actions.  Only when law enforcement managers start thinking in terms of organizational inoculation through value-centered trust and respect, rather than organizational treatment through punitive action and governance, will we develop agencies with enough pride and cohesiveness to govern themselves…and that requires the development of value-centered relationships. Until we do, we will act as a real-life version of the cartoon character Pogo when he said: “We have met the enemy and they is us.” Rich De Paris, Ph.D. is the director of the Center for Effective Leadership which specializes in leadership training and organizational development for law enforcement.

  

By Russell Ruffin

Law Enforcement Media Training

 As the Phoenix Police Public Information Officer prepared for his news briefing, he carefully reviewed the facts:  At 12:20 pm an explosion rocked the city’s largest mall, five people are dead, a first responder died after being overcome by fumes upon arrival, more than a hundred people have been injured by flying shrapnel, another a hundred or so are showing signs of chemical poisoning, but even worse, a plume of deadly sarin gas has been released and many of those who were exposed to the fumes are now fleeing, heading to hospital emergency rooms, further spreading the contamination.

George Washington Elementary school with seven hundred students, is situated two blocks to the east of the blast site, while the business district and several residential areas are sprawled out on the north, south and west sides.

Every available resource of the police department has been completely depleted as law enforcement awaits the arrival of federal assistance and relief.  Within ten minutes of the blast the local news media interrupted programming for a series of unconfirmed reports that left everyone frightened and confused.  One radio station was carrying a LIVE telephone interview with a witness who called in to say he was walking toward the main dining area of the mall when the blast sent dozens of victims flying through the air.  The caller said the blast hurled him more than fifty feet outside through a set of double glass doors. 

Dozens of reporters were arriving at the mall, entering from every entrance.  Before the stations could get their LIVE TV signals transmitted from the scene, one reporter on a cell phone, was providing a detailed description of death and destruction reminiscent of the suicide bombings across Iraq.  Another TV station was conducting a LIVE interview with an unidentified security officer at the mall who said the explosion had all the markings of a terrorist attack.

Residents were becoming uneasy.  A traffic jam developed as hundreds of frantic parents raced to the elementary school to retrieve their children, another gridlock developed in the downtown area as workers and nearby residents began their frantic evacuation.

Twenty-seven minutes after the blast the Police PIO faced the media for the first news briefing:  “At approximately 12:30 this afternoon there was an explosion of undetermined origin at the Northside Mall.  At this point we have no reports of any injuries.  We have several units on the scene and we are attempting to assess the situation.  As far as any possible fumes or gas, we don’t know what they are at this time, so we are taking precautions.  For anyone who was exposed inside the mall, we want you to return to the scene where we have set up a mobile decontamination center.  We want everyone to remain calm.  And we will be holding another news conference as soon as we have information that we can release.  George Washington Elementary School is in close proximity to the mall so until we have a better idea of what’s going on, we have the school on lock-down.”

Half a country away in Homosassa, Florida the body of 9 year-old Jessica Lunsford had been unearthed from a shallow grade only 150 yards from her home.  Convicted sex offender John Evander Couey had confessed to the senseless killing.  Citrus County Sheriff Jeffrey Dawsy was about to face the horde of news reporters, who for the past three weeks had provided the entire nation with wall-to-wall coverage of the futile search for Jessica.

More than a hundred police and volunteers had scoured the area for any clue to Jessica’s disappearance.  In the end, her body was found buried behind Couey’s half-sisters home.  The house was within sight of not only the Lunsford home, but also the search command center.

Outrage was the feeling of family and friends with the news the Jessica had been abducted and murdered by a sex offender neighbor.  Sheriff Dawsy appeared to be equally outraged as he faced the news cameras that were now transmitting to a LIVE national television audience:

“You know this guy is not a quality individual by any means.  He is, also to my knowledge, a crack-head…he’s truly a piece of trash”.  As Sheriff Dawsy completed his statement a thundering round of cheers and applause erupted among the participants at the Law Enforcement Media Training Seminar and Simulations viewing the news conference three thousand miles away in Kent, Washington.

The seminar instructor, turned off the big screen projection from the news conference and continued the class, “These are two distinctively different news events.  The Phoenix mall bombing is a simulation, and we all know the Florida kidnapping was, unfortunately for real. Now I want each of you to go before our LIVE news camera and hold the same news conference, but do it better.” The instructor’s assistant picked the first officer who will hold a mock news conference.  The entire class will act as reporters and ask aggressive questions.  Three officers are selected to help critique.

As the class prepared for the mock news conference many were wondering why the Sheriff was able to get away with expressing his outrage and personal feelings in the Jessica Lunsford case, but the police officer briefing the media on the mall bombing was so reserved, he was actually down-playing an incident that could have been a terrorist attack.

The answer to that question is often a complex one.  Police officers are expected to provide information to the public without emotion and without provoking emotion.  They are sworn to uphold the law and protect the public. The Sheriff has the same responsibility, but in order to keep his/her job, the sheriff has to face the public every two to four years in an election.  As public officials, Sheriffs have to identify with and appeal to the public.  In the Jessica Lunsford case, Sheriff Dawsy’s apparent outrage seemed to match that of his electorate in Citrus County and thus helped maintain his popularity with the public he serves.

In the simulated mall bombing the officers posing as Phoenix PIOs seemed to show almost no emotion, which is not a bad thing when part of your goal is to maintain calm.  Downplaying or attempting to minimize the seriousness of a situation can cause problems.  The PIO knew there were a number of mock deaths and mock injuries in the mall bombing, but he chose to downplay it in his words, “because my chief didn’t want to create a panic.”  However, had the chief and PIO briefly collaborated, they might have reached the conclusion that by letting the public know upfront that there had been deaths and injuries, the public might have taken the situation more seriously and thus followed police instructions more closely.

The PIOs also responded to the media on several occasions that: “We don’t know the origin of the blast. We don’t now if there has been a release of any poisonous gas.  We don’t know what we are dealing with.  We don’t know if the nearby school is in danger.”  All of those statements gave the impression that police were baffled and confused.  In any crisis situation, no matter how serious, the public needs to be assured that law enforcement is in control, otherwise individuals will follow their own natural instincts to protect their children by ignoring roadblocks and racing to the school or mall to rescue their loved ones.

While police cannot be in control in all situations, there are key words and phrases that can be used to reassure the public that police are taking control.  Police need to make comments that show they are “proactive” rather than “reactive”.  Answering with “proactive” words demonstrates to the public that you are taking control.  Answering with “reactive” words emphasizes to the public that someone or something else is controlling the situation situation.  Below are examples of the differences.

Reactive:  “We don’t know the origin of the blast or exactly what happened.”
Proactive:  “We are now determining what caused the blast.”

Reactive:  “We are still trying to reach the victims.”
Proactive:  “We are now rescuing those affected.”  Always eliminate the word “trying”, because it implies that you aren’t being successful.

Reactive:  “We don’t know what kind of poisonous gas, if any, we are dealing with.”
Proactive:  “We have experts who are now making that determination and we will be giving you that information shortly.” Even if you don’t know at least let them know you have experts at work on it.

Reactive:  “Sorry, I can’t take any more questions right now, that’s all the time we have.”
Proactive:  “I will have updated information for you at our next briefing.  We will be holding that briefing right here in one hour.  If we have information before then I will let you know.”  This shows the public and the media that you are in control.  If you walk away from the podium with the media still asking questions, it shows the public that the media is trying to gather information that for unknown reasons, you are withholding.

In times of crisis the media develops an insatiable appetite for information.  The best way to deal with that situation is to provide all the information you can as soon as you can.  Once the media feels they are not getting enough information from you, they will go to great lengths to get it from any other source they can.  Often those alternative sources are inaccurate.  Such inaccuracies tend to hurt the credibility of the news organizations, but more important, it often adds to the confusion of the crisis, making your job more difficult.

In a crisis situation the public doesn’t always expect you to have all the answers, but they do expect you to take control.  The quicker you can show you are in control, the more confidence the public will have in you and therefore be willing to follow your directions.

During a crisis you can become more proactive by giving the public a hotline phone number they can call to check on loved ones affected by the events.  Give the public an assignment, such as sealing off doors and windows, be on the lookout for a particular car or suspect and monitor local news for further developments.  Often, knowing all the answers and the details of an event are not as important to the public as your assurance to them that you are in control.

The last thing you want is to face a news conference with so little information that the media is shouting over themselves with questions you can’t or won’t answer.  If a news conference such as that is carried LIVE, it will look as if the reporters and not you are running the show.  When you set up the news conference, also set-up the ground rules.  Appeal to the media in advance not to shout out questions, but rather to raise their hands and be recognized before asking a question, because you want to keep the news conference as orderly as possible. 

Before you hold a news conference decide what information you can release and what information you can’t release.  Also, have one main point you want to emphasize and try to keep your news conference centered around that point.  If someone asks a question that is too sensitive, don’t answer with “no comment” or “I can’t get into that now”, that will create distrust among the public, instead, answer with something along the lines of: “because of the sensitive nature of this case, that’s part of the active investigation”, then divert the subject back to your main point.

Keeping the questioning on track takes real talent and a lot of practice.  There are “bridges” or “transitions” you can use to divert a sensitive question without appearing to be evasive.  Some of those bridge and transition phrases are:  “I understand what you are saying, but the important thing to remember is…” or “I can understand your concern over that, but what’s really important is….”   There are dozens of terms and phrases I recommend to officers to keep their news conferences on track.  Remember, it’s your news conference and you want to keep it under control in order to deliver your message in the most effective manner.

In the words of one of the officers participating in the mock news conference:  “I’ve been shot at twice in the line of duty, but going before the news media is the toughest assignment I’ve ever faced.”

Russell Ruffin is a 25 year Emmy Award Winning broadcast news veteran.  His on-camera reports have aired on CNN, NBC and Fox News Channel.  He has also produced for America’s Most Wanted and the Law Enforcement Television Network.  He has developed News Media Training Seminars and Simulations for Law Enforcement.  He conducts the seminars at dozens of host police agencies.  After covering the Oklahoma City Bombing and the Columbine High School Massacre he produced “Surviving the Trauma”, a one-hour documentary to help officers and Victims’ Assistance units around the country recognize and deal with trauma.

 For information on attending or hosting one of his Media Training Seminars, phone: 866-470-0716 or email: TVNews3@msn.com. Website: www.PoliceMediaTraining.com

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