Assignment 2: What's the Difference?
In this assignment, you will explore how interrogation is different from interviewing.
Scenario: You work as a psychology professional for a metropolitan police department. Your primary job is to screen police officers for employment and emotional stability. You make recommendations about their suitability for employment, conduct interviews with police officers to determine whether they should be referred for counseling, and monitor their performance by dialogues with their superiors. You are recognized for your skills as a clinician, and you are asked to participate with a team of interrogators so they may become more proficient in obtaining confessions from suspects.
Compare the relationship of a psychology professional working with a suspect as a client with the relationship of a psychology professional working as a consultant to an interrogator.
Tasks: In a minimum of 300 words, respond to the following:
• Part 1: Differentiate between interviewing and interrogation. What are the goals of interviewing and interrogation? In what instances would a psychology professional be involved in an interrogation?
• Part 2: Identify a context and setting for a forensic psychology professional to be involved in an interrogation. What would be your concerns in taking on the role of or assisting that forensic psychology professional?
• Part 3: Review the current version of the APA ethics code and the APA resolution on interrogations and identify an ethical principle that potentially conflicts with psychology professionals participating in interrogation. Discuss your choice in relation to the context and setting you identified in Part 2.
Use the current version of the APA ethics code; choose elements of the ethical principles to explore issues, such as "do not harm," "informed consent," "use of assessment techniques by unqualified persons," and "resolving ethics code conflicts in an organization." Explore the following issues in the context of the scenario above:
• Who is a psychology professional's client?
• With whom does a psychology professional have a professional relationship?
• Do psychology professionals have any professional (as opposed to "moral") obligations to suspects?