No Admissions

[Intrigued]

George, Thanks for your site and your book.  I am heading for a polygraph exam and am considering using CMs strictly to avoid a false +.  I have nothing to hide, but I am confused about the book's advice about making no admissions (except the most trivial ones).  Are you saying that in response to a non-trivial control question, "have you ever ever driven under the influence of alchohol," or "have you ever cheated on your taxes", or "have you ever used drugs" (answer 1 joint at age 17) I should admit nothing and lie?  I have no problem using CM but I don't want to lie.  Am I better off not lying and not using CM.  Will CM work if I tell the truth and admit the minor discretions in the control questions?  Thanks.

[polycop]

George, Thanks for your site and your book.  I am heading for a polygraph exam and am considering using CMs strictly to avoid a false +.  I have nothing to hide, but I am confused about the book's advice about making no admissions (except the most trivial ones).  Are you saying that in response to a non-trivial control question, "have you ever ever driven under the influence of alchohol," or "have you ever cheated on your taxes", or "have you ever used drugs" (answer 1 joint at age 17) I should admit nothing and lie?  I have no problem using CM but I don't want to lie.  Am I better off not lying and not using CM.  Will CM work if I tell the truth and admit the minor discretions in the control questions?  Thanks.

George,

You ever get the idea that you are just confusing the hell out of people?  To bad....If not for your "advice", this guy might have made a good cop... :-/

Polycop...

[George W. Maschke]

Intrigued,

Any admission you make to your polygrapher has the potential to be spun out of all proportion into a damaging -- and perhaps disqualifying -- admission. See the subchapter titled "Inflation/Fabrication of Admissions" beginning on page 58 of the 2nd edition of TLBTLD for examples of this. You'll need to make a judgment regarding the potential for any admissions you make to be inflated or mischaracterized by your polygrapher.

Note that in a pre-employment polygraph setting, any question about drug use is almost certainly a relevant one. Admitting your one time marijuana usage is very unlikely to disqualify you -- probably most Americans who grew up after the Second World War have experimented with marijuana, and employers typically allow for a limited amount of past marijuana use. For example, the FBI allows for marijuana use of no more than 15 times, with no use in the past three years.

If you admit to your one time marijuana use, make it perfectly clear that it was one time only. Don't fall for the interrogator's trick described in the subchapter "...And Sign No Statements" (at p. 110 of the 2nd ed.):

A common tactic used by polygraphers is to request the subject to write out and sign a statement listing the admissions they have supposedly made. It may not be in your interest to sign any such statement. Suppose, for example, you admit during your "pre-test" interview, or in the pre-polygraph questionnaire that some law enforcement agencies require applicants to fill out, that you smoked marijuana three times while you were in high school. Your polygrapher asks, "Can you really be sure that it was only three times? Any doubt in your mind will show up on the polygraph. Would it be fair to say that you used marijuana less than ten times? Yes? Then very well, why don't you write that down here and sign."

When you sign that statement saying that you used marijuana "less than ten times" instead of the three times that you said earlier, you've just given your polygrapher a signed "confession" that he can use to portray you as having been dishonest when you claimed to have used marijuana only three times.

The countermeasures described in TLBTLD can help to assure that your physiological responses to the "control" questions are stronger than your physiological responses to the relevant questions. But they will be of little use if you make a disqualifying admission, or if an innocuous admission you make is spun out of proportion by the polygrapher.

[Saidme]

George

We're your admissions/confessions spun out of control?  What were they?

[George W. Maschke]

Saidme,

In my pre-employment polygraph examination (with the FBI), I mentioned that, as part of my official duties in a previous government job, I had (authorized) contact with someone from a non-U.S. intelligence service. Other than that, I made no admissions to any of the relevant questions.

I do not know to what extent anything I said in the course of my polygraph examination may have been misrepresented by the polygrapher (or anyone else in the FBI). When I filed a Privacy Act request for my FBI file, the Bureau stated that it could not locate certain polygraph-related documents that should have been there. (They claim they're still looking for them.)

Our advice in TLBTLD regarding not making admissions is not based on my personal experience, but on that of others, if that is what you had in mind.

[G Scalabr]

Intrigued,

I'm going to add my two cents here. I personally believe in making full, complete, and honest disclosures to a potential employer. What you decide to do is up to you. Regardless of your choice, he is one piece of advice I strongly suggest that you adhere to. Make all of your disclosures at the earliest possible point in any hiring process.

For example, you may be asked about your drug history during an interview. If not then, it is sure to be a topic on the background questionnaire. My advice is to be forthcoming as early as possible and to not waver from your original statements under pressure, polygraph or not. Changing your story when you enter a polygrapher's lair is a recipe for disaster. I can see how an agency would look unfavorably upon an applicant that only comes clean after confronted with a psychological torture device.

[George W. Maschke]

Intrigued,

I also agree with the points Gino raised.

[Saidme]

Gino and George

Although I disagree with Gino's characterization of the polygraph, I applaud your advice (honesty) to Intrigued.

[Poly-Killer]

Saidme,

In your reply to suethem, you stated you don't conduct screening polys, and never have.

I'm curious...

What is your opinion on the validity/reliability of poly-screening?

Should LE agencies keep using it? If so, why?

I'm curious to see your response to these questions.

Best,
PK

[Saidme]

PK

I don't know the reliability of polygraph on pre-screening exams.  I think LE should use it only to resolve derogatory information obtained as the result of a background investigation.  It goes without saying they definitely should use it for criminal specific issue testing.

[wombat]

saidme,

if you dont know any thing about the reliability of the polygraph in pre job testing how can you be so confident at suggeting that i will fail mine???

[George W. Maschke]

Saidme,

You write, "It goes without saying they definitely should use [polygraphy] for criminal specific issue testing." Considering that CQT polygraphy has no scientific basis and zero diagnostic value, one could say that the notion that it should "definitely" be used for criminal specific issue testing only "goes without saying" for those who "go without thinking."

[Saidme]

Wombat

Your psychological tie to the relevant issues won't allow you to pass the test.  The mere fact that you're coming to this website is testimony by itself that you've got major issues with some relevant questions.  You can practice all you want and read all you want.  When the test begins your performance (CM's) will fall apart.  Trust me, I've seen it happen many times.

George

Bravo with your word games.  You must be excellent at scrabble.  Maybe we shouldn't play that since we haven't seen any scientific studies.  Since I've employed polygraph for some time now and have observed it work and work well, I don't need a scientific study to tell me polygraph does or doesn't work.  I'll continue to use it.  Can you tell me about your experiences as a polygraph examiner?  I didn't think so.  You experience lies (pun intended) with your own deceptions during your examination.

[s-X-e]

Since I've employed polygraph for some time now and have observed it work and work well, I don't need a scientific study to tell me polygraph does or doesn't work.  I'll continue to use it.  Can you tell me about your experiences as a polygraph examiner?  I didn't think so.  You experience lies (pun intended) with your own deceptions during your examination.

What exactly is your definition of, "work and work well?" A simple prop can elicit confessions from those who believe it is capable of catching them in a lie, but that does not mean that any such prop is based on any scientifically valid theory.

Also, how do you know polygraphs work? You may be completely oblivious to those who have passed using countermeasures simply because they were able to effectively use them without you knowing it. Can you say with full confidence that you have detected every single person to ever employ countermeasures? If so, why don't you take Dr. Drew's challenge?

I don't think it's fair to say that a device, while good at extracting confessions by duping examinees through fear, "work[s] and work[s] well," if it also is responsible for providing false results on examinees who are being completely truthful.

I'm also curious as to how you can so easily snub your nose at the findings of NAS. Why exactly do you believe your conclusions are more valid than their conclusions?

[Saidme]

My definition of "work and work well" would be the countless confessions I've obtained as a result of polygraph examinations.  Those same confession have landed murderers, rapists, child molesters, drug dealers, and thieves in jail.  Some for life.  Several of these folks are folks who have relied on TLBTLD (or something like that) to get them through the examinations.  These admissions came from the examinees themselves.  Some have even provided me with copies of George's little book.  Regarding scientific validity.  You guys seem to be hung up on that statement.  From my viewpoint, I could care less whether it's proven scientifically valid or not, all I know is it "works and works well" (see above).  

We apparently agree on one point:  "while good at extracting confessions"