Most polygraph examiners in South Africa are affiliated to the American Polygraph Association (APA). As of 20 January this year, the APA stipulated in its Standards of Practice that, with immediate effect, members are prohibited from conducting more than five examinations of any type in one day.
Now whether you will be making use of polygraph examinations shortly, or a fellow examiner, this is good news.
In order to best illustrate this, we need to look at the polygraph examination process. Contrary to some belief, it is not the polygraph instrument that does it all. The process is vital in providing you with that accurate result you are expecting and paying for.
A fair comparison here would be a pilot and his aircraft. The aircraft will fly - of that there is no doubt. How well it flies though, is dependent on a well-skilled pilot. If the pilot is unqualified or if he cuts corners and omits vital procedures, the aircraft will fly very poorly at best and will not fly at all at worst.
The analogy to conducting polygraph examinations is a good one. The polygraph instrument (assuming of course that it is an APA-approved instrument) is accurate, but is highly dependent on a qualified and skilled examiner following a procedure that has been proven to yield the accuracy figures we examiners assure you of, namely 95%.
Perfecting procedures
Let us look at some of the APA stipulations with regard to the procedure. The full Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics are available on their website at www.polygraph.org
* Steps must be taken to ensure that the examinee is physically, medically and mentally fit to be tested.
* A pre-test period must take place which includes ensuring that the examinee has a reasonable understanding of the polygraph process and the requirements of cooperation. This period must also include a discussion with the examinee on the issues to be tested. Time must be given to allow the examinee to fully explain his answers here.
* All questions in the test need to be discussed with the examinee. Time must be spent ensuring that both the examiner and the examinee understand the question to mean exactly the same thing. The wording must be in such a way to ensure that the examinee cannot engage in a rationalisation process of any sort.
* Examiners are required to use a validated testing technique.
* Demonstration tests are required for all evidentiary examinations* and recommended for all investigative examinations**.
* A sufficient number of charts conforming to the testing technique must be obtained by the examiner.
* Examiners' decisions and opinions must be based on a scoring method that is valid and reliable as per published and replicated material, and is appropriate to the questioning technique used in the exam.
These are the APA requirements, and they alone justify the APA's decision in January. They ensure that professional and accurate examinations are conducted by APA members. There are many cases, both in this country and abroad, where polygraph examiners have done 10 to 15 examinations in one day. There is even a case where one examiner performed 27 tests in a day! Under those circumstances, you as the client are simply not assured of a result that is 95% accurate. Perhaps even more distressing, neither is the examinee.
Techniques
Now factor-in techniques that many examiners are taught to utilise in the examination as additional means to indicate the level of truthfulness in the examinee, namely:
* Forensic assessment interviewing skills in the pre-test interview - skills taught to law enforcement and customs officials - to assess not just what the subject is saying, but how they say it and the body language they are using when they say it.
* Statement credibility and analysis techniques to analyse the subject's statement (written or oral) to indicate whether the statement is that of a truthful person or a deceptive person.
* Countermeasure techniques from the subject - identified both during the test and in the chart readings.
Finally, you may request the examiner to perform a post-test interview in the event of a deceptive result. This in itself is a lengthy and skilled procedure. From this a confession may arise which needs to be recorded correctly and in such a manner that it can be used as evidence at a later stage.
It now becomes obvious that the entire procedure is long and detailed - as it should be. You are relying on us, the examiners, to provide the truth at a very high rate of accuracy, otherwise you are better off flipping a coin which is both cheaper and quicker.
As an examiner, I am particularly delighted by this change. The polygraph examination, properly administered by a highly trained and qualified examiner using a valid testing and scoring technique, is the most accurate means known to science for determining whether a person has been truthful.
Anything undermining the accuracy of this damages the entire industry and consequently leads to less use of the polygraph in general. Conversely, steps like this ensure adherence to protocol producing validity and reliability figures of the 95% already mentioned.
For more information contact Deep Blue Detection, +27 (0)11 824 0430, [email protected], www.deepbluedetection.co.za
*Evidentiary examinations are examinations whose written and stated purpose, agreed to by the parties involved, is to provide the diagnostic opinion of the examiner as evidence in a pending judicial proceeding. This is not intended to prevent admission as evidence of a confession obtained during the examination.
**Investigative examinations are polygraph examination for which the examination is intended to supplement and assist an investigation and for which the examiner has not been informed and does not reasonably believe that the results of the examination will be tendered for admission as evidence in a court of record.
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