The Language of Confession, Interrogation, and Deception (Empirical Linguistics)

Taking a linguistic perspective, this book is a practical explanation of how confessions work. Roger Shuy, author of the 1993 benchmark work, Language Crimes, examines criminal confessions, the interrogations that elicit confessions, and the deceptive language that plays a role in the actual confession. He presents transcripts from numerous interrogations and analyzes how language is used, how constitutional rights are protected (or not), and discusses consistency, truthfulness, suggestibility, written confessions and unvalidated confessions. He also provides specific advice about how to conduct interrogations that will yield credible evidence.