Samenvatting

The main goal of an interrogation is to elicit truthful information about the involvement of a suspect or witness in a criminal act. Some interrogation methods and techniques are useful for extracting information from otherwise unwilling suspects, but they can also elicit false confessions or statements from innocent (and vulnerable) suspects and witnesses. Multiple studies show that a large proportion of false confessions are made by suspects with an intellectual disability. Intellectual disabilities are often difficult to recognize, because of an individual’s streetwise behavior. This vulnerable group is extremely sensitive to suggestibility, compliance and acquiescence. Some interrogation methods and techniques used by the police can have a severe influence on these features and therefore on the reliability of statements. Given the overrepresentation of people with an intellectual disability in the Dutch criminal justice system, it is of great importance to prevent unwanted risks in the interrogation.