What next after psychology tests?

QUO VADIS INDIAN POLICE?

Where are you going, Indian Police? Narcoanalysis has been dominating in your investigation scenario in many sensational cases during the past few years thanks to the rebirth given to it by the Bangalore psychologist. Its spell on you was strong that you had forgotten the technique of sustained interrogation.

The media was so obsessed with the exciting terminology of narcoanalysis, lie detection and brain mapping that no day went without a write-up on the subject. Politicians were vying with each other to put their opponents on these tests at any slightest provocation.

Even in the present sensational Aarushi-Hemiraj double-murder case, the apex investigating agency of the country was initially obsessed with narcoanalysis and paraded their suspects before the Bangalore narcoanalyst. But now the media reports say that the agency brought the expert to Delhi to conduct psychological tests for the suspects. This psychological test is actually the first test of the ‘four-in-one package’ of tests offered by the Bangalore narcoanalyst who terms it as ‘pretest interview and interrogation.’

This procedure is technically known as ‘Behavior Analysis Interview’, (BAI) and is designed to assist investigators in distinguishing between suspects who are concealing their involvement in a criminal event (deceptive) from those who are not (truthful). During the interview a protocol of questions is asked and suspect's verbal responses and accompanying nonverbal behaviors and attitudinal characteristics are assessed. Based on this assessment the likelihood of involvement in the criminal event is determined. The results obtained, according to world renowned experts are largely illusory, and the rights of suspects can too readily be subordinated.

Psychological profiling is of course a special professional support given by a team of psychologists attached with the American police and as a process of creative synthesis of ascertainments obtained at the scene of the crime, first information gathered, forensic medical and psychological, psycho-dynamically oriented skills and cognizance. The psychological profiling has had an enormous success in the USA in the area of discovering the murderers with sexual motivation, in murders with undistinguished motive when the murderer's possible identity or the relation with the victim is not allocated. It is completely different from homicides, caused by family or neighborhood relations, related to the abuse of alcohol, adulteries and similar, often dramatic occurrences, where the motive is practically obvious and sustained interrogation can lead quite smoothly to the perpetrator.

Now it is said that many family friends of the suspects connected with the Aarushi case are subjected to a psychoanalysis test.” Psychoanalysis is a form of psychotherapy used by qualified psychotherapists to treat patients who have a range of mild to moderate chronic life problems. The application of psychoanalytical methods to the treatment of criminals developed outside the formal criminal justice administration system. It is unheard that psychoanalysis has ever been used for truth detection though hypnosis was used by the police in the West in those black days of War.

But before the advent of barbiturates, alcohol was used as a truth drug. It was also common in olden days to employ women to get at the truth in crime work and surveillance. Let us earnestly hope that the protagonists of narcoanalysis do not lure the Indian Police to such war-days’ practice.