Techniques To Exploit Vulnerabilities: Persuasion And Education In Chinese Police Interrogations

Mou, Yu

Abstract

Drawing upon in-depth interviews with frontline police officers, this article examines persuasion and education as a psychological interrogation method routinely applied in Chinese police questioning. It analyses the three tactics employed by the interrogators in inducing the suspect to confess, including utilization of suspects’ personal relationships, their hope for the uncertain future and memories of past experiences. These mechanisms correspond to the three forms of universal vulnerability shared by human beings, namely the individuals’ susceptibility to human dependency, the predicament of irreversibility and uncertainty about the future. This article analyses the ways in which vulnerability as a universal human condition can be exploited by state coercion, and how this coercion produces the moral vulnerability of police.

Citation

Mou, Y. (2022). Techniques To Exploit Vulnerabilities: Persuasion And Education In Chinese Police Interrogations. The British Journal of Criminology: An International Review of Crime and Society, 62(3), 734-750. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab095

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 13, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Sep 4, 2021
• Publication Date: May 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 13, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 13, 2021
• Print ISSN: 0007-0955
• Electronic ISSN: 1464-3529
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 62
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 734-750
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azab095
• Keywords: Criminal Justice, Vulnerability, Police, Interrogation, China
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/62/3/734/6364209
• Related Public URLs: https://academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjc/azab095/6364209