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Exploring the interactions between Psychology and the Law

25th November 2018

What role can psychology play in criminal proceedings, sentencing and the post-sentencing stage? Is criminal justice practice sufficiently informed by psychological research? What can we do to better incorporate evidence-based practice into the criminal justice system and avoid the pitfalls of miscarriages of justice?

These are some of the questions that have been examined in the Psychology and Law conference organised by the Forensic Psychology Unit at Goldsmiths, in association with SL5 Legal, a Law firm with expertise in prison law, human rights, judicial review and parole, and Red Lion Chambers, one of the leading sets specialising in criminal and regulatory law.

The conference, organised by Caoimhe McAnena, a Psychology lecturer at Goldsmiths, brought together psychologists, solicitors, barristers, judges, probation officers and other senior criminal justice experts, including the Law Commissioner for Criminal Law and Evidence in England and Wales, Prof David Ormerod, HH Noel Lucas QC who is the Resident Judge at Wood Green Crown Court and the newly appointed Chair of the Parole Board, Caroline Corby.

from left to right: Prof Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, SL5’s Fiona Dunkley and Prof Fiona Gabbert

The conference also underlined the emerging collaboration between the Law programme at Goldsmiths and the Forensic Psychology Unit. Head of Law, Prof Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos and Head of Psychology, Prof Fiona Gabbert, paired up in the first panel. Prof Gabbert discussed evidence-based interview skills to elicit reliable information from individuals; how these skills are being adopted into policy and procedure in both local (UK) and global initiatives. Prof Giannoulopoulos highlighted the risk of miscarriages of justice, where self-incriminating statements have been obtained from suspects in violation of their procedural rights. Taking a comparative law perspective, he explained that exclusionary rules for improperly obtained confessional evidence help reduce this risk, but more could be done to avert violations of suspects’ rights in the first place, including placing stronger emphasis on evidence-based interviewing, audio-visual recording of police interviews and police training programmes. Stronger preventive mechanisms would go hand-in-hand with efforts in transnational law to enhance procedural protections for suspects at the police station.

The Law programme at Goldsmiths gives students the opportunity to combine the study of Law with the study of Psychology, through a final year optional module. The ‘Psychology and Law’ module provides the opportunity for advanced study of psychological science applied to the investigation of crime and the process of criminal law, with the syllabus covering current issues in psychology and law, for example: interviewing suspects and witnesses, confessions, detection of deception, eyewitness testimony, eyewitness identification, offender profiling, and CCTV.

Investigating UK complicity in torture after 9/11: the Intelligence and Security Committee reports

15th November 2018

Goldsmiths Law seminar on torture and rendition

On December 6, 18.00 – 19.45, Goldsmiths Law organised the first in a series of research events that will explore UK compliance with the prohibition against torture.

The event investigated the Intelligence and Security Committee’s (ISC) reports on detainee mistreatment and rendition after 9/11, and we had the unique opportunity to hear from the chair of the Committee, and former Attorney General, the Rt Hon Dominic Grieve QC MP, Dr Natasa Mavronicola (Birmingham Law School) and one of the UK’s foremost investigative reporters, including at the Guardian, Ian Cobain. Goldsmiths’ Pro-Warden for Research, Prof David Oswell, introduced the event, highlighting the Law programme’s ambition to tackle challenging human rights issues. Goldsmiths’ Professor in Law, Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos, chaired the event.

Intelligence and Security Report on Detainee Mistreatment and Rendition

The ISC reports on ‘detainee mistreatment and rendition’ after 9/11, published in June 2018, paint a bleak picture of UK complicity in torture, cruel, degrading and inhumane treatment undertaken by the US intelligence services after the September 11^thattacks, and raise serious concern about UK commitment to respecting the absolute right against torture.

Dominic Grieve offered an overview of the report, highlighting that the UK government tolerated action, and took other, that the Committee regarded as “inexcusable”. “The Government is embarrassed” about what is described in the report, he added.

In seeking to contextualise the report’s revelations of the hundreds of incidents of UK complicity in US-ran torture post 9/11, Grieve distinguished between the intelligence services (MI5, MI6, GCHQ) and the military, explaining that military personnel are trained to withstand torture and may be becoming desensitised to it, as a result. Following 9/11, the intelligence services worked with army personnel who had got involved in torture, but were not doing torture themselves, he added.

Grieve also drew a dividing line about what went on until 2010, and what followed, expressing confidence that we now have the protections in place to avoid a similar scandal in the future.

Ian Cobain explained that the ISC reports were a very thorough and candid piece of work, and quite unique in the number of findings of UK complicity in torture it has unearthed. Ian placed the reports in their historic context, drawing on abuses in Kenya, Cyprus and Northern Ireland, with a focus on the adoption of the “five techniques” and the pervasive effect they’ve had upon their victims.

Dr Natasa Mavronicola offered a pessimistic view of the UK’s ability to learn lessons from this history of abuse, analysing torture as an instrument for the dehumanisation of vulnerable groups, minorities, foreigners, an expression of state barbarity towards ‘others’. ‘The ISC Reports confirm and reinforce what many at least suspected to be the widespread, profound and prolonged UK complicity in the torture and rendition practised after 9/11’, she added.

Pro-Warden (Research), Prof David Oswell, opening the seminar on UK complicity in torture

The ISC reports detail the findings of the ISC’s Inquiry into the actions of the UK Agencies and Defence Intelligence in respect of detainees and also rendition. The Committee have taken 50 hours of oral evidence, reviewed 30,000 original documents and a further 10,000 documents which they requested, and 30,000 staff hours have been devoted to this Inquiry.

The Committee reached the point in their Inquiry where they had covered the breadth of the issues but needed to examine certain matters in detail, which could only be done by taking evidence from those who had been on the ground at the time. But restrictions were imposed by the Government which reduced the list of potential witnesses to just four; even those individuals would not be allowed to give evidence on specific cases. The Committee was therefore forced to draw a line under the Inquiry, deciding that what they had found to date should be put into the public domain.

The report brought to light:

evidence of two cases in which UK personnel were directly involved in detainee mistreatment administered by others;
evidence of UK officers making verbal threats in nine cases;
that senior Agency staff had been briefed by the US Agencies and had a clear warning of US treatment of detainees and rendition;
13 incidents recorded where it appears that UK personnel witnessed at first hand a detainee being mistreated by others;
25 incidents recorded where UK personnel were told by detainees that they had been mistreated by others;
128 incidents recorded where Agency officers were told by foreign liaison services (whether formally or informally) about instances of what appears to be detainee mistreatment;
232 cases recorded where it appears that UK personnel continued to supply questions or intelligence to liaison services after they knew or suspected (or, in the Committee’s view, should have suspected) that a detainee had been or was being mistreated;
198 cases recorded where UK personnel received intelligence from liaison services obtained from detainees whom they knew had been mistreated, or with no indication as to how the detainee had been treated but where, in the Committee’s view, they should have suspected mistreatment;
three individual cases in which SIS or MI5 made, or offered to make, a financial contribution to others to conduct an extraordinary rendition operation, to countries where there was real risk of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of the detainees;
that the Agencies also suggested, planned or agreed to rendition operations proposed by others in 28 cases.

After publication of the report, there have been calls from across the political spectrum and human rights organisations such as Liberty, Amnesty and Reprieve, for a “full blown” judge-led investigation into British involvement in extraordinary rendition and torture.

The Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan subsequently told Parliament that the government would decide within 60 days whether or not to hold an inquiry led by a judge – but the deadline passed without an announcement.

In the light of these developments, analysis of UK’s involvement in serious human rights violations such as rendition and torture is urgently needed, and the Law programme at Goldsmiths is keen to take part in, and inform, the debate, and help instil policy reform in this respect.