Hypnosis In Criminal Investigation Essay

When most people think of a hypnotist, they may think of someone similar to a magician. Someone putting on an act for viewer’s entertainment. Hypnosis is used in many different ways other than just pure entertainment. Hypnosis is used in many professions, including criminal investigation. By Webster’s definition hypnosis is, “A trancelike state that resembles sleep but is induced by a person whose suggestions are readily accepted by the subject.” Research shows that hypnosis is the equivalent to breathing to a human. It is a trait that everyone carries.
The first “scientific” viewpoint for hypnosis was made by Franz Mesmer during the eighteenth century in Europe, around the time of the Enlightenment Era. Mesmer was the first to have the most consistent hypnotic method. He would link his subjects together by a rope, while he was dressed in a dark cloak, playing harmonic music in the
background. At that time hypnosis was thought to be “magic”, and not a safe subject to research and practice.
Even though it was very dangerous to show interest in the subject, Mesmer’s research showed facts that hypnosis worked, which inspired individuals to continue research and understand how it worked. In the 19th century, Doctors John Ellioston, who was a surgeon, James Esdaille, a physician, and James Braid, a researcher, risked their high reputations and careers to continue research and the way hypnosis works, until it became accepted into something that validly works. Because of their persistence and most likely their high reputations in medicine, hypnosis became studied in hospitals and schools across Europe. By the 20th century hypnosis became a popular academic subject to debate about. Studies moved from Europe to America and became more of a popular phenomenon. Hypnosis became more available to just anyone other than the studies in academic places like schools and hospitals. With the subject becoming global, new styles were practiced. Milton H. Erickson, a therapist, changed the way hypnosis had been done. Erickson changed the style to a permissive and indirect trance with persuasive speech, instead of having one person giving direct instruction (The History of Hypnosis 2012). This style is what most people use today.
Today hypnosis is used in a therapeutic setting and also in a criminal investigative setting. In criminal investigation it is more focused on heightening memory recollection of a witness’s view of a criminal event (Council on Scientific Affairs 1985; Reiser 1989). There are three different methods to gaining a testimony while being hypnotized: free recall, the witness is asked to completely say everything they observed; structured recall, the witness is asked what they observed specifically; and recognition, where the witness is asked to distinguish any certain features from the circumstance, for example what the perpetrator was wearing (Sanders and Simmons 1983).
The largest debate about hypnosis is how accurate it actually is. There are also some contradictions when it comes to the hypnotist and the subject they are hypnotizing. When the subject is hypnotized they become very relaxed and believe that the hypnotist is an expert at everything and has control. So when asked questions the subject will say whatever will please the one in charge until they have received some sort of recognition (Orne 1984). This sort of process is known as confabulation.
Psychologist Nancy Steblay and Professor Robert Bothwell examined sixteen different studies over the usefulness of hypnosis in criminal investigation going over the three different types of methods in criminal investigation.
They concluded the following: 1) in free recall circumstances, subjects that are hypnotized give more accurate evidence than the control subjects. The difference overall though is not very much at all. 2) When leading questions are asked in structured recall circumstances, the control subjects give more accurate evidence than the hypnotized subjects. 3) During recognition circumstances, hypnotized subjects are not more likely to identify a person accurately in a line up for example, rather than the control subjects (Steblay and Bothwell 1994). Even though the controlled subjects are more accurate than the hypnotized subjects, the hypnotized subjects were much more confident in their decisions. Steblay and Bothwell said, “Hypnosis is not essentially a cause of wrong information; at worst it may be a cause of incorrect information given with such
confidence.”