tvc184

As the saying goes, the "E" in email stands for evidence.

But as Englebert keeps pointing out, they don't detect lies and never claim to.

But polygraphs do work a lot better than 60% and besides, the analogy doesn't make much sense. A GPS is dependent on almost pinpoint accuracy. A polygraph does not and only guages reaction. A hand grenade doesn't have pinpoint accuracy either but is a highly effective tool. Simple interviewing of people isn't nearly as accurate as a GPS either so should the police quit questioning people?

  They will win but they won't finish the job. Too many people in the world want them to back off and let Hamas regenerate and kill more innocent people in Israel. 

  Okay, I will expound a bit.    What are you asking? 

  Our results must be atypical then because I don't see the waste of money and time. It costs almost nothing and I have never seen it cause overtime for the operators. They schedule the interviews during regular duty time just like any other interview/interrogation. It is not like there is an emergency called out at 3:00AM for a spur of the moment polygraph where the taxpayers have to pay the overtime.    When you get a confession from a child molester or a murder suspect, I wonder how they measure that cost as a waste. I wonder if another method could have been used faster and cheaper.    I can look at the time that we have had for overtime on surveillance and what the odds of success are. I imagine Beaumont PD has put in a lot of time and money (maybe thousands of dollars) into the serial rapist investigation and as of yet, has turned up nothing or at least not to getting probable cause for an arrest (I am sure that they have some leads). I guess stakeouts and task forces need to be stopped as they are not cost effective. The question then goes to, what do the police do to solve the serious crimes and what part does cost play to the public and are the other methods more cost effective than a polygraph?    My guess is that they are not.    Or as westend stated, it is a tool. 

  We are giving a test in September.  :D

............ and if your point is that the polygraph doesn't specifically detect lies and the the public doesn't always know or understand that, I agree. There are lots of areas the public has absolutely no clue about.    The way I look at that issue is, who cares? It is still an option for an investigation just like other methods. It is not an end all in an investigation. I wish it was that simple. I have seen a case that I worked around the edges about 25 years ago where a guy completely blew a polygraph and we thought that he kidnapped and killed a small child. He did not confess however and we at that point did not even have a body. A few weeks later we found her body and about 10 years later he confessed. The polygraph (probably through his fear of being discovered) was dead on target and it meant nothing as we could not use it. If the polygraph would have ended it, we might have found the little girl sooner and would not have to wait several years for his conscience to bother him. 

And?

You seem to have an axe to grind with polygraphs and note that they do not detect lies. That is true but they work the way they are intended.    Remember that a person does not have to consent to taking one for a criminal investigation. I have known many people that "passed" in that they did not show deception so the idea that merely asking people a question of guilt will show that they are lying (false positive) because they are nervous is not correct, otherwise every person would show deception.    When I took a polygraph to get hired by the police department, they asked me all kinds of sensitive questions (some which they can't ask any more) that made me very nervous as they would exclude me from being hired if they could find out evidence that I was not telling the truth. That is also why all questions have to be asked multiple times and there has to be a certain amount of time between questions. The idea that some questions make people nervous even if they are telling the truth is a known factor.    I was watching an old Dragnet show last week from I think 1969 where a murder suspect was taking the polygraph (girlfriend was found dead). He showed "deception" but then Sgt. Friday asked about the interpretation of the "suspect's deception", the polygrapher stated that he did not think the guy did it. Of course it was television (claimed to be from actual cases) but when questioned the polygrapher stated that maybe the guy watched a recent movie where a similar event happened, maybe his girlfriend always did something a certain way or he could have merely guessed because of what is routinely thought of as a means of death like a shooting or strangulation. When asked specific questions about where the victim's car was located, where the body was found and other such details were asked, he showed no response. So even 45 years ago some television showed that even with a positive response in some areas, it does not show that a person lied or was guilty. As the polygrapher in the episode noted, a couple of deceptive answer did not show guilt and he thought that the cops had the wrong guy and in fact they did. The entire interview and test is the key, not a single "did you lie" question.    I can believe that was taken from a real case where the guy on the hot seat was very nervous about general questions because everyone thinks if a woman is found dead, there is a good chance the boyfriend/husband did it but in that case the details cleared him. And again, it is a tool that a person does not have to submit to. I can assure you that many criminal cases have been cleared by the polygraph and with completely different factual evidence as the use of the polygraph itself cannot even be disclosed in court. It takes real evidence both testimony and physical for a conviction, not a polygraph.    If the police had a lot of problems with false positives as you suggest, why would they still be using them? I never saw a point in wasting my time in an investigation and in the years that I was in detectives I only asked for a polygraph on a couple of occasions. One guy backed out and one confessed when I suggested it.    There are also other methods to solve cases and get confessions like kinesic interview techniques which are basically a person to person "lie detector". They are extremely effective if the interview/interrogation last long enough but like the polygraph, it is just a tool to get a confession or to find evidence and the technique itself is not evidence. We can't give up crime fighting because hunches, polygraphs, interview techniques, etc., can't be stated as evidence. They all play a big part is solving some crimes however. 

  No, I would be okay with them not being in the country. I don't want them here paying out of state tuition either.    None of that has anything to do with you trying to make (for several weeks) a correlation between the Obama Dream Act and the Texas in state tuition law. You are trying to make it show that if Perry does it, it is okay but if Obama does it, it is wrong. You have the apples and oranges problem of comparing two different things where one has almost nothing to do with the other. 

Those silly experiments are nonsense. The polygraph depends on a person having something to lose or as you say, the fear test. I agree that it is fear that drives them but it isn't fake. Telling me that it is a fear test doesn't negate the results, it shows what causes them.    A person that lies about a number on a test that he volunteers for has no consequences. I have watched some of those and they have no bearing. Have the person sign away his life savings or let him get hit with the Taser if they can discover the lie and see what the results are.    A polygraph is not a lie detector but a measure of blood pressure, pulse, respiration, etc. It doesn't flash that a person is lying, it tells you questions that cause a person problems in some kind of fear of being discovered or as you say, a fear test. You can bet that there are people in this forum that might have stretched the truth a bit on how big of a fish they caught, etc. Their blood pressure didn't sky rocket out of fear of being discovered, their respiration didn't get heavy and their pulse didn't quicken. It is because there was no one there to call them on it and there was no real loss because of the lie.    When a person is answering questions about a crime and you get to a question that makes his pulse rate go up, his blood pressure start rising and his breathing starts to get more labored and the previous 10 questions had no such response, there is a reason.    The instrument does not detect lies. It detects body responses. A person that "passes" a test does not mean that he is telling the truth (as the goofy numbers test shows) but he is a person that has no fear of what he knows or about someone else finding out. A person that shows deception might have other reasons for the elevated responses. It does not mean that he lied but something in the question is causing a different response than the other questions.   Like two people have said, it is a tool. If it was ever a definitive "lie detector" then it would be admissible in court and we could do away with juries. It is not nor is it ever claimed to be.   Does the general public know that? Probably not but many of them also believe that the police can get DNA results in 15 minutes and plug it into a computer of every living soul and come up with a suspect. Most of the public knowledge of law enforcement, laws in general and prosecutions comes from television and movies. 

  You keep pushing the claimed TX dream act like it is the same as the proposed federal law and Perry supports one but not the other. In truth one has nothing to do with the other than a made up name.   Under TX law, an illegal alien that lives in this state, can pay in state tuition. Hmmmm..... any person that lives in this state can claim that he lives in this state for tuition purposes when applying to college.    Wow.... that is almost the same as the federal Dream Act where if you go to college you become a citizen.    NOT!

  Sure. But we get a guy in his second DWI and the feds will not touch him no matter that he can get a year in jail and has endangered lives.    Under former administrations (including Democratic), that was a ticket out of the country. Not so today but being illegal does not exempt them from state or city laws. 

  As a governor he had no authority as many on the left point out when states try to enact laws dealing with illegal aliens.   I can tell you from a law enforcement standpoint that when i arrested an illegal alien for anything (even a traffic citation) we could put a immigration hold on them for deportation. I stopped a couple of guys one time working at a local chemical plant after someone thought that they were suspicious. I had no crimes to arrest either of them but called INS (now ICE) and spoke directly to a local federal agent on my cell phone. Both had been in country for a few years and had been working at the plant. Both were arrested for immigration violations and brought in for processing and deportation.    Today we can catch an illegal alien in even fairly serious crimes and cannot put a hold on them. The local agents cannot makes such decisions and have to call Houston and ask for permission to investigate them. Previously any INS/ICE agent could detain a person for up to 24 hours to determine his status. Now they can hardly even talk to local law enforcement about illegal aliens because the current administration has changed the rules of enforcement.... not the law but merely how it is applied or more correctly, ignored. To put it simply, under Bush or even Clinton, we could get illegal aliens deported or at least investigated. Under Obama that is simply not the case. If they aren't being held for at least a felony, they are free to go. They readily admit that they are illegal as they have no consequences. 

  I would guess fishing.    PA just hired a new superintendent so that it out and I doubt that their head guy wants Chargois for an assistant. They could be taking applications for principles or other admin types or even merely a teacher. Whatever it is, I think that it is not likely to be someone in actual financial control over anything significant. While looking for a new job, he might have put an application in at several places and someone might have seen on in PA and it all of a sudden became an event. 

  And there you have it.   If a person blows it off of the charts then he is likely involved in whatever you are looking into. If not them he probably isn't your guy. As westend states, it is a tool.    Many people will blow a polygraph so bad (and they know it) that they will confess or sometimes confess before they take it during the pre-test interview.    In any case it helps law enforcement have an idea if they are likely on the right trail or not. Doing good doesn't mean that you aren't involved and doing bad doesn't mean guilt but it is accurate enough most of the time to help with the investigation. 

  Belize

  Yes, off topic is a rules violation. Almost everyone throws in a tidbit from time to time that is not exactly on topic but when the entire thread turns into nothing but bashing and not only bashing but for something that has absolutely nothing to do with the topic, it is time to lock it or be removed. 

If you are referring to the thread on blacks having crime genes or predisposed to committing crime, I removed it.    Not that the topic wasn't stupid enough however it could have stayed but when about 8 posts were about calling other members sexual preference into question. In fact 13 of the first 20 posts had nothing to do with topic but calling other people gay or loony. That not only violated the rules of this forum it also went way off topic...... which is also a rules violation.    I didn't feel like deleted 75% of the posts in a single thread so I chose to delete it. Apparently that was not good enough for some members as the offending posts were repeated. 

It looks like he will not have a complicit school board to cover his tracks this time. 

  But if you are much as slapped one without leaving a single mark, some would claim that is child abuse. 

All child abuse cases are subjective. What appears to be abuse to some people is not to others and the facts may or may not comply with the law in that state.    In TX law it says that you cannot create serious bodily injury to a child even for discipline but someone has to sit in judgment what is SBI according to the definition in the law. It is the same way with all laws. 

I thought they were building a fishing pier there. 

  Actually the state has organized crime laws also similar to the federal RICO laws. They are seldom used however.    Under TX Organized Crime Chapter 71, whatever the most serious crime that was committed by the conspiracy (even if they did not all know each other), the entire group can be prosecuted for the next highest crime of the most serious offense committed.  For example, 10 people conspire on various levels to commit theft, burglary or forgery (there are lots of other crimes listed) and the most serious crime committed by any one person is a 2nd Degree Felony Theft (more than $100,000), it then goes to or is enhanced to a 1st Degree Felony Theft or up to 99 years for everyone in the organized crime.  Even if one of the participants only stole $400 but it was part of the big scheme, he/she gets the same charge as the most serious crime committed. A $400 theft alone carries a maximum of 6 months in the county jail but if it is part of organized crime as my example, that same person would be facing up to 99 years instead of 6 months.    With this new DA, something like that is entirely possible.