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The flawed interview of a psychopathic killer: what went wrong?
Author(s) -
Perri Frank S.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of investigative psychology and offender profiling
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.479
H-Index - 22
eISSN - 1544-4767
pISSN - 1544-4759
DOI - 10.1002/jip.128
Subject(s) - confession (law) , homicide , suspect , interview , psychology , law enforcement , legal psychology , flexibility (engineering) , criminology , economic justice , social psychology , law , poison control , human factors and ergonomics , management , political science , medicine , economics , environmental health
The flawed interview of convicted killer Christopher Porco illustrates what occurs when a suspect's psychopathic traits are not considered in formulating an interview strategy. Specific areas of the dialogue between Christopher Porco and law enforcement demonstrates that traditional methods of interviewing may not produce a confession or valuable information when it comes to psychopathic suspects. Although the traditional goal of an interview is to obtain a confession or valuable information, law enforcement will have to display flexibility in the interview process by implementing alternative interview strategies and redefining what a successful interview is composed of when these suspects are unwilling to confess to their crimes. Failure to remain flexible, as displayed in the Christopher Porco case, which yielded neither a confession nor valuable information, can jeopardise the strength of a homicide case that ultimately may go to trial. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.