nonombre wrote on Jul 4^th, 2005 at 7:40pm:


The only one makeing assumptions here is you (I hope your control questions aren't that bad).  I was not referring to myself in that post, but to the many others denied a career opportunity due to your quack science.
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There are many investigative tools.  Are you saying that polygraphics is the only way to solve a case?  Surprise; I'll admit.  I'm not an expert investigator, but my plan would not be "let's just polygraph every perv and see if they confess."  (and no, I'm not implieing that was their plan either)
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Read the news pal, he may be back on the street due to a sloppy investigation that relied too much on the polygraph.  It'd be a shame to have his confession kicked, and the lack of any other evidence let this guy go.  Had a thorough investigation been done, there'd be other evidence.
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The only thing that meks me uncomfortalbe is a system that'd actually assume that soembody passing a polygraph with flying colors was being truthful and drop their investigation on that person.  If somebody uses CM information on this site and passes a polygraph, shame on YOU for your over-reliance on the polygraph, not shame on this site for making the info available.  And lumping people adamantly against pre-employment polygraph screening in the same boat as convicted sex offenders is completely pathetic and wrong.
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A complete investigation would have required more work.  They already had their sites on the guy, and as I understand it, had already searched his house when the girl was still alive.  He'd eventually have been caught, and convicted with evidence and not a confession that may now be tossed.  You're again making too many assumptions.  I had no untent of maligning the police who searched for the girl; but their reliance on a polygraph induced confession perhaps cuased their investiagtion to end early, and now that confession may be gone too.

Jeffery wrote on Jul 4^th, 2005 at 8:32pm:


Yes, I have also read about problems with the interrogation of this perpetrator.  It seems the police may have violated his rights by not making a lawyer available when he first asked for one.  This mistake was prior to any polygraph testing however.

What is interesting to me is that apparently he was more than happy to B.S. the police investigators (and of course deny the crime) all day long.  Until polygraph was mentioned.  Then his immediate reaction was to ask about a lawyer (and I admit he probably should have been provided one at that point).  However, rightly or wrongly, he was not.  Now that part of the case will be up to the courts.  Also, it should be noted that when advised of his rights immeditely prior to the exam, he waived his right to legal counsel, so this will be an interesting one to watch to be sure.

Yes, it seems Mr. Couey was quite comfortable lying and betting he would never be caught, but the instant polygraph was mentioned, he froze.  Apparently he now feared he would indeed be caught, for as soon as the polygraph was complete, he realized the jig was up, immediately confessed to the crime, and took the police to the body.

As far as your statement, 'had a thorough investigation been done, Jeff, you have no idea how thorough an investigation had been done.  You just don't know.  Neither do I.  Neither one of us were involved in this case.  This polygraph exam was likely the last shot they had at this suspect before he would have clammed up permenently.  Look at the case in Aruba right now.  Evidence seems to imply that the young kid that in all probability has all the answers, got his stories straight before he was ever questioned by the police.  Frankly, as a police polygraph examiner I would love to have a shot at him.

Jeffery wrote on Jul 4^th, 2005 at 8:32pm:


Good point.  However,  remember that in the vast majority of criminal cases, the polygraph is the very last thing that happens before a case is closed.  I suspect that is why I have seen so many hopeless cases be literally saved by the polygraph.  If the guys passes and the case is dropped, in many situations it was on its way to being dropped anyway.   

Jeffery wrote on Jul 4^th, 2005 at 8:32pm:


Our anti-urinalysis friends make the same argument.  So do people who provide information on buying college term  papers, hacking into corporate and government computer systems, and provide the words and phrases to use to convince your prison counsellor that you are a situational child abuser and not a preferential abuser.  Therefore you are rehabilitatable and should be released back into the community.

Nobody who makes this sort of information available ever, ever takes responsibility if the information is misused.  "Shame on society for placing such weight on things so easily manipulated."  "If somebody bad gets ahold of this information I'm making available, and misuses it, its not fault.  I just made it available."

Jeffery wrote on Jul 4^th, 2005 at 8:32pm:


Come on Jeff.  That is not what I meant by the reference.  I meant that I suspect there are a large number of convicted sex offenders who have this site bookmarked and have a copy of TLBTLD on their coffeee table hoping to successfully use the methods within to defeat their maintanence exams and stay out of prison.  If you thought that I linked those folks with police applicants, then I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

Jeffery wrote on Jul 4^th, 2005 at 8:32pm:


Jeff, I am afraid you and I are both guilty of making to many assumptions.  You cannot say with any certainity that "...He'd eventually have been caught, and convicted."

Regards,

Nonombre

Nonombre-

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree on this.  I'll continue to characterize your viewpoint as "Nonombre doesn't care if hard-working, honorable, decent people are victimized by inaccurate polygraph testing, so long as a few criminals get caught" and you'll continue to assume my position is "Jeff doesn't care if a child molester walks, so long as good people aren't burned by the polygraph."

In both cases, good investigative work can either backup or refute polygraph results.  It is often not done in employment screening and should always be done in criminal cases (and if it is not, then shame on the investigators).

For the record, I hate to see perverts cheat the system.  But a system so easily cheated is simply a flawed system.  You can point fingers at this site for publicizing the flaws in the system (The lie behind the lie detector) and we can point fingers back at you and lay the blame at your feet for your over-reliance on this flawed system.  I would hope that a simple polygraph test is not the only thing keeping pervs out of prison.  I'd expect actual investigations to ensure their continued compliance -- communications monitoring, random searches, ankle-bracelet monitoring and anything else that can legally be done to people who have lost their liberty through commiting a felony should be used; not simply a polygraph and guess.  I'm sure the criminals would probably also prefer this system, since it actually gives them a chance to reform and prove their compliance (as opposed to the word of an "all knowing polygraph witch-doctor).  Society would probably prefer this type of compliance monitoring, since it would eliminate the risk of a criminal actually beating a polygraph -- that is, of course, unless every sex offender always fails their maintenance exams (due to polygrapher bias).

Comparing polygraph "testing" to chemical drug testing is a joke.  In one case somebody with a few weeks training uses Oijia-board like magic to gaze at a chart; in the other case, REPEATABLE chemical reacions occur that give indication if a substance is present.  One testing method can be done completely blind; the other depends on the subject's ignorance of the process, can be beaten by altering one's breathing pattern (or whatever other effectve CM we decide to argue about) and is subject to somebody's subjective opinion (based on prejudical assumptions they make during a "pre test interview" to derive control questions).

Here's a question for you: Do you see greater numbers of suspected CM usage after an examinee admits to researching polygraphics prior to their exam, or do you also accuse people who deny researching polygraphics of using CM's?

Also, with my knowledge of polygraphics and open hostility for such, would you give me a screening exam if I happened to apply at your department?  Would you simply fail me or accuse me of CM's if I expressed my feelings in a pretest interview?

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Brandon,

Both you and Jeffrey ask some very good questions.  I will try to answer you first in this post and get back with Jeffrey later.

Concerning your first question:  "What information do you hold that may be helpful to the truthful examinee?  Please do not respond "just be 100% honest" as this is the standard and tired respone to this inquiry."

I was hoping somebody would ask me about this.  Okay, before I articulate my proposal, lets address again the two types of polygraph testing.:

1.  Criminal testing:

2.  Screening:

Since my proposal addresses screening, lets attack it first.  I will get to criminal testing later:

Police pre-employment polygraph screening is only one of several steps most police applicants must successfully navagate to get to the final point of being hired.  For most departments, the post-application steps are:

1.  Written test
2.  Psychological testing
3.  Physical test
4.  Polygraph Exam
5.  Interview/panel
6.  Background investigation.

The order might be different, but these are the basic steps.  (some departments add-subtract various things, but these are the usual basics).

Okay, here is what I propose.  How about we weigh the various steps according to what a particular department feels are important, then numerically score each step with an eye torwards understanding that if an applicant "bombs" one particular area (including the Polygraph), he can still get the job.

You see, if you look at all the steps closely, you will see that most are actually quite subjective in nature:

1.  Written test - Some people just don't "test" well.
2.  Psychological testing - Oh please, psychology is the
     "softest" of the sciences.
3.  Physical test - Okay, pretty objective, but once the
     average cop has a couple years on the force, the
     donuts do tend to take over. 
4.  Polygraph Exam - Arguementively Subjective, with a
     documented error rate.
5.  Interview/panel - NOTHING is more subject than this.
6.  Background investigation.  High false negative rate.

As I see it, we provide a numerical value to each of the steps and come up with a minimum "pass" number.  Additionally, we design the scoring system to specifically allow an applicant to to do badly in any one area and still get the job (Yes, that includes the polygraph).

Now, if the applicant does sufficiently poorly in more than one area, he is out of the running.  That will allow someone who is otherwise excellently qualified but fails the polygraph (or some other area) to still get the job.

However, if anywhere during this process, information develops that specifically disqualifies the applicant (e.g., he admits during the polygraph/psychological interview he has several bodies buried in the backyard), he is likewise out of the running.

This way, we have gone a long way to protecting against the "false positive."   

Now you can still argue against all the weaknesses of the polygraph, but as I have indicated, virtually all the steps towards employment  have distinct drawbacks.

Okay, what do you say?  Might this work a little better?

Now about criminal testing:

John Couey happens to fall into a group of criminals which  polygraph testing happens to have a 60+ year history of properly identifying.  I would argue that over the years, thousands of criminal cases have been solved by the very thing that caused the Couey case to be solved.  Namely, Couey, faced with the polygraph results, confesses, and takes the cops to the body.

Case closed....

Do we truly want to take such a useful tool away?  Especially since our criminal justice system already protects suspects from being convicted or even charged based on the results of a polygraph exam.  The criminals are already protected and as I indicated earlier, in most cases, polygraph is the last step anyway.  So if a false negative occurs, all we are going to do is close a case that was going to be closed anyway.

I see a no lose situation here in regards to criminal testing.   

You ask some questions regarding firearms.  Please let my tired mind address that one another time...

Lastly, you argue, "...this site does not provide information as to the proper way to successfully commit a crime and avoid detection."

I would argue that point.  If the countermeasures taught on this site do indeed enable at least one criminal to commit a crime and avoid detection (through the use of polygraph), then are you not helping that criminal?

Nonombre
   

I understand that Nonombre believes the polygraph is a useful tool, and that he is as entitled to his opinion as I am.   

But, it seems he still is not facing the fundamental problem that I and many others on this board have with the polygraph.  I failed three consecutive polygraphs over the span of several years before passing my fourth and getting my current job in law enforcement.  On all three failures I told the complete truth, did not withhold anything at all, and didn’t even know what a countermeasure was, much less employ any.  The failures were for supposedly fighting/committing assaults, using cocaine, and stealing.  None of them was even remotely accurate.  To top it all off, on my fourth test I answered all the questions the same way I had on the first three (at that point I still believed the polygraph was accurate and thought this must all be a terrible mistake) and I passed.

Given my experience I’m confident you can understand why I think the polygraph is utterly useless as anything other than an interrogation intimidator.  It’s actually worse than worthless because some people think it is a valid way of determining deception when it clearly is not.  Scaling back its use in pre-employment screening or assigning a point system to its results is no more acceptable than doing such things with a crystal ball or a deck of tarot cards.   

I think what really left me with such a negative impression after all four of my polygraphs was the utter dishonesty of the examiners.  Each one assured me prior to starting that not only was it flat-out impossible to conceal from the machine my body’s reactions to a lie, but they also solemnly stated that they (the examiners) were the real “lie detectors” and even without the machine they could easily detect any signs of deception in my answers.  The way it was presented to me made it sound totally believable – they said they were highly trained and did this day-in and day-out, and they could effortlessly pick up on the tiniest clues, such as breathing or holding my breath, blinking quickly or at long intervals, pupil dilation, which way I looked when I answered, whether I moved or sat still during an answer, etc…  I had no reason not to believe them, and no reason to worry about it either, since I was fully planning on being 100% honest in all my answers.

At the end of my first three polygraphs, when the examiner told me I was lying about this or that, they would tell me it was so obvious to them that I might as well be holding up a sign.  Each one reminded me that they were experts at detecting deception, and that I would be better off admitting to whatever they were questioning me about.

So there I was, making statements that were 100% truthful, and having the examiner tell me how absurdly simple it was for them to see that I was lying.  They were saying: “You can’t fool me.  It’s as plain as day to me that you’re lying.  Even without the charts I can easily see you’re not telling me the truth.”  When I repeated my earlier denials they would shrug as though they had tried to help me but I was too foolish to take their help.

Now, if they accused me of all that as a tactic to get me to admit something, fine.  If that was the case they should have reported back to the agency I was applying to that I had passed.  But in each of my first three polygraphs they reported back that I had failed because I had been deceptive about exactly what they questioned me about in the post-test interview.   

The examiners could not possibly have had any proof or even indication I was lying for the simple reason I wasn’t.  I was being truthful in all of my responses, not only because I’m a truthful person but also because I really believed the machine and the examiner would be able to detect any lies or half-truths.  But the examiners, who must have been unethical, incompetent, or both, still reported back that I was deceptive.  Either they had no idea what they were looking for or at and took a wild guess, or they just decided to fail me on a whim.

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And those who practice it.

Nonombre wrote:
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I cannot disagree with you on this point.  As a manager for a former employer I was instructed to provide minimal information when contacted by prospective employers of former employees.  Yes he/she worked here.  No he/she no longer works here.  All of this bs due to civial litigation.  The problem therein lies that the company hired some real bafoons after having received like information.  However, I thought this was the reason an applicant signed a release for former employers, credit agencies, etc. to provide information regarding the applicant.  I know I signed a release to hold harmless the agency and polygraph examiner when I was administered a polygraph examination.  I can bitch, but I can't sue (wouldn't have anyway).

A background can look into a person's present, past and patterns of behavior.  I asked my personal references to be honest even if they thought or knew I would not like their statements (probably not many or least not all do the same).  My feeling is that the background investigator is accustomed to sugary bullshit and knows it is just that.  If it led to another contact which was not listed as a reference so be it.  My character stands on its own whether it is appreciated.