Aug 13, 2020

Junk Science and Lying Cops

Kathleen Zellner derided police orthodoxy when she scoffed at law enforcement's notion they are trained "human lie detectors," a delusion exemplified in the notorious conduct of Wisconsin cops who preyed on an innocent and cognitively challenged 16-year-old to help frame her client, Steven Avery, featured in the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer.

A still-flourishing junk science field is exacerbating law enforcement's dogma they have become lords of truth, even as police self-consciously lie, mislead and cover up as standard conduct in support of the American police cult.

Put another way, junk science does not help liars.

A report by Jordan Smith in The Intercept on junk science training in the police-prison-industrial complex reveals how deeply law enforcement zealots are inculcated with trash. 

Smith leads with Wisconsin law enforcement's participation in a typical junk-science class:

The training session was billed as 'cutting edge,' and dozens of law enforcement professionals signed up to learn about 'New Tools for Detecting Deception' from a human lie detector who calls herself 'Eyes for Lies.' Her real name is Renee Ellory, and she claims that she’s one of just 50 people identified by scientists as having the ability to spot deception 'with exceptional accuracy.'

A flyer for the event, hosted by Wisconsin’s High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area — a federal program that supports law enforcement drug interdiction work — was included among a trove of law enforcement documents that were hacked and posted online in June under the title BlueLeaks. The promo copy leans heavily into Ellory’s skill at ferreting out deception in others. She is 'exceptional at pinpointing a liar and can tell you why she doesn’t trust someone on  the spot,' it reads. Training participants would learn how to 'identify anger, contempt, and disgust before words are even spoken.' Course objectives were broad: Learn to differentiate between 'real' and 'fake emotional displays'; 'recognize hidden emotions'; identify the 'ways our subconscious brain leaks information when we lie'; 'analyze body language that indicates deception'; gain tips to use when interviewing a psychopath; 'identify the key features of expressions that reveal danger for you!' ...

Participants spanned the law enforcement spectrum and included the chief of a small police department, corrections officers, university cops, state troopers, various members of the Milwaukee Police Department as well as individuals from the U.S. Probation Office and the FBI. ...

[Blue Leaks] documents offer a window into how various training methods perpetuate myths — subjective, hunch-based approaches to interpreting human behavior that are unreliable and have been discredited by leading psychologists — that police are then encouraged to use in crime solving.

The civil liberties attorney Zellner is right.

And junk science disciples congregate where garbage is useful Joy Reid defaming Bernie Sanders because of body language, for example, and fulfillment of police predilections: Killing, arresting, detaining, defamation, character assassination, harassing, abusing, all manner of police violence.

Junk science perfectly describes police capabilities, people who tend to be dishonest, racist and intellectually lazy to begin with.

Law enforcement are not rational seekers of truth, possessing broad knowledge of people, society and history.

So, it's not really surprising that junk science is still used to train and instruct this ignorant and malicious bunch. 

But why are the Wisconsin people for example, not up in arms demanding this fraud stops?

Because Wisconsin folks don't know about this expensive fraud. 

This is changing thanks to Black Lives Matter, Blue Leaks, the Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences and other liberation work, (Wired).

Junk science purporting to be an instrument to ascertain truth will eventually go the way of phrenology, eugenics, racilogy and 19-centuary notions of anthropology.

As for detecting when cops lie, today there is actually a failproof method to determine if law enforcement is engaged in deception: They open their mouths, scribble their reports and testily.

How we expose and challenge this danger is a testament to our fellows, right here and right now.

No comments:

Post a Comment