pretend science and the power of the government

The power of government matched with the authority of unethical experts can do unimaginable damage.

The Motherisk Drug Testing Lab at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto was used for over twenty years to do hair analysis on people suspected of illegal drug use.

For more than two decades, Motherisk performed flawed drug and alcohol testing on thousands of vulnerable families across Canada, influencing decisions in child protection cases that separated parents from their children and sometimes children from their siblings. 

Decades.

Child welfare agencies in five provinces across Canada had paid for Motherisk's hair-strand tests, believing they were scientific proof of substance abuse. The tests were often used in custody and child protection cases in part to decide whether a parent was fit to care for a child.

Motherisk scientists were operating without any forensic training or oversight. Its test results, it has now been discovered, were faulty opinions. 

The science had seemed straightforward. Simple strands of hair are a warehouse of information, storing biomarkers that can reveal proof of drug and alcohol use. They hold that information longer than blood or urine.

This is similar to polygraph exams. Someone believes they are scientific but they are actually only faulty opinions.

Like the unscientific hair strand tests--and ballistics and bite-mark and all kinds of forensic tests--the polygraph is used to deprive people of their freedom and to break up families.

Over two years ago, Conor Friedersdorf wrote in The Atlantic about the practice of using unscientific tests and the tragic miscarriage of justice that often results. Friedersdorf writes:

...as the Washington Post made clear Saturday in an article that begins with a punch to the gut: "Nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000," the newspaper reported, adding that "the cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death." 

The article notes that the admissions from the FBI and Department of Justice "confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques—like hair and bite-mark comparisons—that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989."

When you hear prosecutors talk about forensic proof of guilt, keep your skepticism handy. Those forensic tests, pretend science, will be used against you and it will be used to damage your family.

Junk science paired with the force of government should frighten us all.

of polygraphs, registries, minors...and everyone else

Let's talk about Zach Anderson again. He's the unfortunate and unwise young man who, at 19, had sex with a 14-year-old girl who said she was 17.

The South Bend Tribune reports:

The young man, Zachery Anderson, was sentenced harshly by a Berrien County judge who preached about the immorality of meeting partners online. The sentence included jail time and 25 years on Michigan's sex offender registry, attracted national publicity and was overturned several months later by a different judge.

Zach was days away from completing probation when he was arrested October 11 for violating his probation restrictions.

It was during a recent polygraph that Zach truthfully answered the question that led to his recent troubles: Have you had any contact with anyone younger than 18? Yes, Zach said.

Bam. His honest answer during a polygraph resulted in the arrest.

Courts are not allowed to use results of a polygraph exam because polygraphs are not scientifically reliable. If probation officers were required to treat polygraphs the way courts use them--which is to say, not at all--Zach would likely be off probation.

Instead, probation officers are allowed to mandate polygraph testing.

Elkhart County's probation department has required regular polygraph tests, at $300 apiece, and Zach has taken at least five. 

Zach wasn't arrested for violating parole because he failed the exam; he was arrested because the polygraph was an opportunity for the probation officer and the polygraph examiner to push him to incriminate himself.

Probation officers can use polygraphs to take away the freedom of a probationer. Veracity has nothing to do with it.

Zach's parents have raised holy hell to protect their son from the perils of the sex offender registry. What parent wouldn't do the same? Through their efforts, their son's story has been told far and wide.

It is easy to sympathize with Zach's situation and recognize that his punishment for unwise behavior has been far out of proportion to the crime he committed. It is also easy to wonder if a 19-year-old having consensual sex ought to even be a crime.

Nevertheless, their son is still mired in the criminal justice system.

Les [Zach's dad] has written a letter to President Trump that he intends to also send to Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. senators, asking for "Zach's Law," which would protect young people from sex laws that have such unintended consequences. 

It is worth remembering Radley Balko's suggestion that laws named after victims are usually an emotional response, not one based on reason.

Young people do need protection from draconian laws. The Tribune continues:

Tough laws on sex offenders don't take into account their calamitous effects on young people unwary of the electronic age and its consequences, said Amanda Anderson, Zach's mother. 

Absolutely. Inarguable.

"Has there been life lessons learned? You bet there has," Amanda said of her family's experiences. But "we will continue to pursue the rescue of minors under the draconian image of the sex offender registry law."

The one lesson the Anderson family seems yet to learn is that the registry is bad for everyone. 

Bad for families on the registry, bad for communities funding a registry quickly growing unwieldy, bad for law enforcement agencies who  squander resources enforcing registry laws that protect no one.

Leaving people on the registry because they committed crimes worse than teenage sex means that children of registrants are still at risk.

Every family living on the registry worries that their kids will suffer because of it. Too many kids do suffer.

Some families are torn apart by probation restrictions that prevent the registrant from contact with his own children, even when the children were not victims of the crime. Some families struggle financially because of the cost of probation. See above where Zach paid at least $1500 for junk science polygraphs.

Financial struggles continue after probation and parole are completed because employers are often reluctant to hire registrants.

Childhood friendships can be difficult when parents won't allow kids to visit the home of a registrant or when kids learn to taunt children who live on the registry. Schools can be willing to humiliate the children of registrants by refusing to treat their family as all the other families are treated. Places of worship are too willing to restrict the ability of a registrant to attend services with his family.

The registry inhibits a family that wants to overcome the trauma of a family member committing a crime.

After serving the sentence handed down by the court, a person deserves to return to be welcomed back into society. The registry prevents that.

Families in which someone committed a violent, non-sexual assault are better able to return to life as it was before that crime because information about that crime is not easily available. Families of those on the registry deserve the same dignity and respect.

The  Andersons would do much more good by advocating for the abolition of the sex offender registry.

Rescuing minors is shortsighted.



Previous posts about Zach Anderson:

bad for kids, bad for all; abolish the registry!

The sex offender registry is a bad idea for anyone. No matter how guilty or how unsympathetic, no offender deserves extra-judicial punishment long after serving the sentence handed down by the court.

Lenore Skenazy says sex offender laws are "Taliban-esque"

Families torn apart are all too common when sex offenses are involved, even when the offense used to be something for which parents grounded the kids and law enforcement was only rarely involved.

polygraphs: liberty interests and the rule of law

The Pueblo (CO) Chieftain published a bold, important statement about the use of polygraphs:

All uses of polygraphs in the legal system should be abolished.

Earlier, the Denver  Post reported that the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board includes the owner of a polygraph company and when the use of polygraphs are discussed, that man recommends the use of polygraphs. The Denver Post said the use of polygraphs "borders on a scam."

It is good to see polygraphs exposed as the junk science they are. I blogged about the Post stories here.

In the Chieftain, an opinion piece by Dennis Maes, a retired chief Pueblo district court judge, calls out...

...the involvement and participation of the judiciary, probation and the Department of Corrections in perpetuating the use of polygraphs. Why is this revelation significant? Because the Colorado Supreme Court and the Colorado Court of Appeals have both condemned and prohibited the use of polygraphs in court proceedings. 

Good point. If courts have prohibited polygraph results, why are they still mandating their use for sex offenders? It is hard to explain any better than Maes does:

According to existing Colorado law, the results of polygraph examinations are per se inadmissible for any purpose in criminal and civil proceedings in Colorado courts because they are scientifically unreliable. Simply put, they are worthless because they have zero evidentiary value and are, therefore, irrelevant. [My emphasis throughout.]

If they cannot be used, they obviously should not be ordered by the court. To order a useless report paid for by taxpayers is not only fiscally irresponsible but unconscionable. 

Despite established law, the judiciary, probation and DOC continue to require polygraphs. This practice is a clear assault on the Rule of Law which embodies the belief that the law applies equally to all individuals and institutions, including the judiciary, with no exceptions. The Rule of Law is a cornerstone of a free democratic society.

The supervision of a sex offender on probation requires the sex offender to sign terms and conditions of probation. which can only be ordered and changed by the court. A stock condition is the requirement to submit to polygraph examinations. Failure to comply with the terms and conditions subjects the sex offender to punitive sanctions, including the loss of liberty interests.

The argument will be advanced by probation and others that probation will not be revoked based solely on the results of a polygraph examination. There are those who would disagree. Nevertheless, current probation standards, approved by the court, provide that a sex offender may be regressed in treatment if the offender produces a deceptive polygraph. The regression may obviously be based solely on the results of a polygraph.

Regression? The practice of making someone back up to a previous point in his treatment. More time in treatment can affect how much freedom the parole or probation officer allows the offender.

Liberty interests.

A further dilemma faced by an offender occurs when a provider ignores an objection registered by the offender or offender's attorney to submit to a polygraph based on existing state law. Many, if not all, providers and probation officers treat the proper objection as obstruction and a violation of probation either threatening to or filing revocation proceedings. Said behavior is a violation of due process.

Many, if not all, providers will refuse to treat an offender who refuses a polygraph. To exacerbate the problem, many providers treat the refusal as a violation, which subjects the offender to punitive action even in the case when the court might not require the treatment.

Read that again. Treatment providers can impose punitive actions on an offender for refusing to submit--or objecting!--to a polygraph, even when the treatment is not required by the courts.

When a treatment provider can punish a client for questioning treatment requirements, the treatment provider is clearly not a part of the therapeutic world.

In the interest of full disclosure, concerns about the current polygraph practice and public funding for polygraphs have been shared by way of protest with Chief Justice Nancy Rice, Rick Raemisch, executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, and the chief judges of each judicial district. The responses submitted by the Supreme Court and DOC appear to carve out exceptions to the law where none exist and certainly not recognized by state law.

Maes is impatient:

It is perplexing why the judiciary has been so resistant to ridding the courts of a practice condemned by its own appellate courts.

He says that if the courts will not follow established law, the Legislature should tackle the subject. One suggestion from Maes:

First, the Legislature immediately could suspend any state funding for polygraph examinations. Said action would not only be a firm confirmation of the significance of the Rule of Law but the fiscally responsible thing to do as stewards of the taxpayer's money. To continue a practice that has been debunked by the courts simply defies logic.

This is truly a breath of fresh mountain air.

Maes does not question the utility of polygraphs because that question was settled long ago when courts called the tests scientifically unreliable. He is angry that courts ignore those findings.

He lays the blame for the continued use of junk science at the feet of the judiciary, probation, and the Department of Corrections.

He recognizes what families of sex offenders already know:

To be certain, there will be many who have little or no concern whether sex offenders are treated fairly.

...and delivers a final blow at those who continue to treat sex offenders as less than worthy of treatment that follows the law:

What is important, however, is that society ensures that the sanctity of the Constitution be safeguarded by protecting the rights and protections it guarantees to all without exception.

Readers: Make sure that probation and parole offices and treatment providers read Maes' fiery blast. If you are still awaiting sentencing, make sure your attorney sees this and raises a protest to any polygraph requirement.

Polygraphs are not just a waste of money and time. They may not be allowed in court but they are currently being used to revoke parole or probation.

Liberty interests. Rule of law.

Denver Post questions use of polygraphs in sex offender treatment

Like many states, Colorado relies on polygraphs to determine how sex offenders ought to be treated. In an editorial, the Denver Post calls for a new plan.

The 25 members of the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board need to overhaul their system for assessing the risk of and providing treatment for the state’s many incarcerated sex offenders. 

Never has that been more clear than after reading how dependent the assessment and treatment system is on the use of lie detector tests, known as polygraphs. 

The Denver Post’s Christopher N. Osher reported that Colorado has spent $5 million over seven years on polygraph tests for convicted sex offenders, used as a key part of determining whether these criminals should be eligible for release, and if so what supervision should look like. Often sex offenders are required to take multiple tests over the same subjects if they fail or have inconclusive results, with both the state and the criminals picking up the tab, and they regularly get tested as part of parole. 

We’re inclined to agree with Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg, R-Sterling, that “it borders on a scam.”

Courts do not allow polygraph interpretations to be presented in court because lie detectors are unreliable. Why would anyone use an unreliable test to decide anything?

Polygraph technicians, who charge for each polygraph, have a clear motivation to declare test results inconclusive or a flat-out failure. A failed or inconclusive test means more tests when passing a polygraph is required.

We hope that ongoing process will result in new standards that place considerably less importance on lie-detector tests. After all, the 2014 report questioned the very theory that the non-recidivism of sexual offenders was highly predicated on a willingness to admit guilt and take responsibility. [My emphasis, throughout.]

If it isn't clear that admitting guilt and taking responsibility for sex offenses is a way to reduce recidivism of sex offenders, then there should be no pressure on offenders to do so in a polygraph. While some go through treatment in prison, most offenders do so after they have been sentenced and completed that sentence. Their guilt is not in question at that point.

That report also said: “The relevant research literature indicates that the polygraph can attain accuracy of close to 90 percent when testing well-defined single issues. Unfortunately sexual history polygraphs are not well-defined single issues and the accuracy level is likely significantly lower.”

No reason to use a polygraph to force admissions of guilt, no reason to think a sexual history polygraph will be accurate--clearly, it is time to retire the polygraph.

Wait. What's this?

In an earlier article, Osher reported:

Colorado will pay Jeff Jenks’ Wheat Ridge polygraph firm, Amich & Jenks Inc., up to $1.9 million to polygraph sex offenders in prison from 2010 to 2020, according to state contracts.

A couple of million dollars over ten years is nothing to sneeze at, especially for someone selling a test that is unreliable.

Jenks is a member of the Colorado Sex Offender Management Board, a 25-member group that writes the rules on how sex offenders are managed. He has defended the use of polygraphs and also voted on polygraph issues the full board decided. Appointed by the executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Safety in 2008, Jenks’ current term runs until 2020.

Jenks recommends polygraph testing and sells polygraph testing and no one else on the board questioned that?

Clean up your act, Colorado, and stop letting the polygraph business clean up at the expense of sex offenders.

why do so many Customs and Border Protection applicants fail polygraphs?

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is having a little trouble hiring enough agents.

Two out of three applicants to CBP fail its polygraph test, according to the agency. That’s more than double the average rate of eight law enforcement agencies that provided data to the Associated Press under open-records requests. 

It's a big reason approximately 2,000 jobs at the nation's largest law enforcement agency are empty, with the Border Patrol, a part of CBP, recently slipping below 20,000 agents for the first time since 2009. And it has raised questions of whether the lie detector tests are being properly administered.

Here's a good question: What is the proper way to administer a famously inaccurate test?

CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske said the failure rate is too high, but that is largely because the agency hasn't attracted the applicants it wants.

Not the fault of the test, then. Perhaps the Craig's List item wasn't clear that the Border Patrol wants honest applicants and so they have been flooded with dishonest, even criminal applicants. An honesty mistake, one might say.

But others, including lawmakers, union leaders and polygraph experts, contend that the use of lie detectors has gone awry and that many applicants are being subjected to unusually long and hostile interrogations, which some say can make people look deceptive even when they are telling the truth. 

Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona said he suspects CBP examiners fail applicants to justify their own jobs. He said he worries applicants are being wrongly branded with a "scarlet letter" in the eyes of other potential government employers.

While the idea that polygraph examiners are failing two-thirds of CBP applicants in order to keep their own jobs is intriguing, I am more interested in Senator Flake's recognition that a polygraph falsely labeling the applicant as a liar will make it nearly impossible for that person to be hired by other government agencies.

Kerlikowske explained that CBP isn't getting the applicants it wants because the relatively new agency, created in 2003, "doesn't have a brand" and is unfamiliar to some. 

Sure, that must be it. The fault lies with the applicants who are unaware that a nearly 14-year-old federal agency charged with enforcing federal laws is looking for honest applicants.

Among other possible reasons offered by some experts for the agency's failure rate: CBP may have higher standards than local departments, and it gets less-experienced applicants who have never taken a lie detector before.

Does that mean that taking a previous lie detector test makes a person more likely to pass? How is that possible if the test does what we are told it does?

Relying on an unreliable test to determine the accuracy of one's answers seems a little nuts.

Defending the polygraph by blaming the applicants seems even nuttier.

ripping the curtain away from the polygraph: nothing there

Doug Williams taught people how to pass a polygraph test. The government wanted him to stop because the government uses polygraph tests as part of their hiring process. What he was doing--teaching--was not illegal, so they had to find another way to stop him.

According to Williams's indictment, two undercover agents asked Williams to teach them how to pass a polygraph test in order to pass a federal background check. 

During the lead up to the classes (and during the classes themselves), both undercover agents repeatedly confessed specifics of imaginary past crimes that they wished to lie about. Because Williams was told about one of the would-be employee's (imaginary) drug smuggling, he was technically assisting a person to defraud the government, according to the indictment.

In 2013, Williams was charged with two counts of mail fraud (he received the undercover agents' payments in the mail) and three counts of witness tampering. Each carried a sentence of 20 years. 

Faced with huge fines and a possible hundred years in prison, he took a plea agreement and will serve two years in federal prison.

[Williams] wants to bring attention to a flawed technology he says has been systematically used to incarcerate and disqualify people from federal jobs. 

"I have no interest in helping criminals escape prosecution or in helping people who are not qualified for a job get it. The more people who understand what the polygraph is capable of doing and is not capable of doing, the more likely it's put into the scrap heap of history," Williams said. "It's worthless technology. It cannot withstand scrutiny." 

In a landmark, 417-page report published in 2002, the National Research Council more or less agreed, suggesting that polygraph testing "rests on weak scientific underpinnings despite nearly a century of study." 

If polygraphs do identify liars based on biometrics, no one would be able to beat the test. Why would the government care if someone were teaching a method that could not work?

"The criminalization of speech advocating for unlawful behavior has been a pretext for suppressing unpopular ideas. It's not a stretch to think that's what's going on here," [Lee Rowland, a First Amendment specialist and senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union] said. "It's clear the government believes the stakes are high here—if [Williams and people like him] are successful, it exposes the fact that these things can be beat, that it's pseudoscience. It's all the more troubling they used undercover agents to create a crime that amounts to nothing more than words alone."

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. He has a polygraph to run.

I blogged about the use of polygraphs in interrogation theater here and I blogged about how therapists, parole and probation officers team up to use polygraphs here.

polygraphs serve law enforcement, not therapy

Registered sex offenders on parole, probation, or supervised release are regularly subjected to polygraph testing.

Under Pennsylvania law, polygraph results are not admissible at trial because of their unreliability. 

Despite that, the tests are now being used by probation officers across the state to supervise sex offenders.

“It’s really the gold standard,” said Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos, who presides over sex offender court. “It is the most accurate way to gauge if treatment is working.”

"Accurate" is an odd word to use when talking about polygraphs. "Treatment" is an odd word to use when talking about probation officers supervising sex offenders.

The tests, advocates say, are designed to help guide an offender’s treatment, to ensure that the offender is following the rules of probation and to reduce recidivism.

Well, no. If there is one thing polygraphs are not meant to do, it is to guide treatment plans. That is what the therapist does. Why therapists don't rise up in protest at having their skills second-guessed by electrodes in the hands of law enforcement, I do not know, unless it is that having a steady stream of paying clients fed to them is more attractive than ethical treatment.

Using polygraphs to reduce recidivism is particularly bizarre. The recidivism rate of sex offenders is already extremely low. 

David Gentile, a psychologist and approved treatment provider in sex offender court, said the polygraph examinations hold defendants accountable for their behavior while on probation. 

As an approved treatment provider, Gentile benefits from the stream of clients mandated to engage in therapy.

Jane Campbell Moriarty, a law professor at Duquesne University, said allowing the use of polygraph evidence in some court proceedings but not in others is illogical.  

“I would disagree with any court letting it in for any reason.”  ...

She is critical of polygraph exams, primarily because they are so subjective, and there are not yet any scientifically accepted methods and standards for administration. 

Among her concerns, Ms. Moriarty has asked examiners if others who administer polygraph tests could interpret their results, and the answer she’s received is no.   

They have come into accepted use in probation cases, she said, because, “I think we’re just terrified of sexual offenders. 

Fear of sex offenders is driven by the sex offender registry. If there were no registry and its label, we would be talking about specific offenders and their specific offenses. Rape, not sex offenders. Public urination, not sex offenders. Sexting teenagers, not sex offenders. Without the registry, we would not be terrified of sex offenders.

“It seems inappropriate to me that their liberties should be taken away because of a test that we find neither sufficiently valid nor reliable to be used at trial,” Ms. Moriarty said. 

Polygraphs are clearly unreliable. Polygraphs are clearly not about therapy. Polygraphs used to monitor sex offenders are clearly about taking away their liberties.

It is appalling that treatment providers allow law enforcement to use them as snitches and enforcers instead of providing effective therapy--uncoupled from law enforcement--for those who need it.

USA Today interviews child porn collector

Kevin Johnson, a USA Today reporter, interviews a man serving time for child pornography offenses.

The man's arrest uncovered

...the single-largest cache of child pornography — up to 1 million images — recovered in Florida history and one of the largest recent seizures in the nation.

This is a lot of child porn, by any measure. There was a time when collecting child porn was hard work because collectors needed to make contact with those who could provide the images. Now, however, the Internet and peer-to-peer software make collecting astoundingly fast and easy. So fast and easy that the reporter's wide-eyed astonishment at the size of the collection seems naive. The article does not report how many distinct images were found and how many repeats were in the collection.

State and federal authorities said such vast repositories of images are becoming increasingly common in exploitation cases across the U.S. Once celebrated as important law enforcement victories, the large seizures and the labor-intensive analysis required of each photograph and video are now complicating the search for victims pictured in the images and others who may have been physically abused by suspects.

Law enforcement will continue to find enormous stashes of illegal images, not because the collectors are that much more evil than pre-Internet collectors were, but because it can be done so easily. A collector who keeps everything is going to have a large collection.

In an estimated 75% of child pornography cases, actual physical abuse by the suspects is likely going undetected, said Michael Bourke, chief psychologist in the U.S. Marshals Service's Behavioral Analysis Unit. In a 2014 study of 127 child-pornography suspects with no known history of "hands-on'' sexual abuse, 5% admitted during traditional questioning to the sexual abuse of at least one child. Yet when investigators introduced tactical polygraph examinations to assist interrogations, another 53% of suspects admitted that they engaged in physical sexual abuse of children, according to the study co-authored by Bourke.

Relying on polygraphs as a tool to expose truth is odd when polygraphs are not allowed to be used as evidence in court...because polygraphs are unreliable, even when they are called tactical polygraph examinations. Using polygraphs as an investigative aid is nothing new.

Although the offender in the Florida case has denied any involvement in physical abuse, Bourke, who has spent years researching child pornography cases and interviewing offenders, said traditional interrogation methods and the enormously time-consuming review of large seizures are not proving effective enough in identifying those suspects who have crossed into physical abuse.

The Florida offender, contrary to Bourke's facile assumption that he has committed hands-on crimes, continues to deny any such activity. That doesn't stop the reporter from dropping fat hints that the man is hiding a history of hands-on offenses.

Research shows that using child porn can reduce the incidence of child sex abuse but the reporter ignores those studies.

Likewise, he ignores the fact that Michael Bourke was co-author of the firmly debunked Butner Study which tried to sell the idea that those who look at child porn have a long list of hands-on victims.

Perhaps instead of examining the million images for evidence of child sex abuse of which they imagine the collector to be guilty, the investigators should investigate the clear evidence of child sex abuse contained in some of those million images.

It is important to know that putting people in prison for possessing, receiving, or distributing illegal images does nothing to reduce the availability of child porn.

Those million images? Still freely available on the Internet.

who believes polygraphs are reliable?

I cannot tell a lie...or can I?

The federal government seems to think I cannot tell a lie during a polygraph examination without being caught in my lie. Joseph Stromberg at Vox.com tells us:

The FBI gives a polygraph test to every single person who's considered for a job there. When the DEA, CIA, and other agencies are taken into account, about 70,000 people a year submit to polygraphs while seeking security clearances and jobs with the federal government.

Obviously, we don't want liars working in law enforcement, so rooting out liars before we hire them is a good idea.

Polygraphs are also regularly used by law enforcement when interrogating suspects. In some places, they're used to monitor the activities of sex offenders on probation, and some judges have recently permitted plea bargains that hinge on the results of defendants' polygraph tests.

Liars everywhere. Is a polygraph a good way to root them out?

As it turns out, no, it isn't. Polygraphs are not admissible as evidence in court and employers (federal government excepted) are banned from using polygraphs on employees.

And yet, the federal government and law enforcement rely heavily on polygraphs.Why is that?

One possibility is the belief that they're useful as a prop — part of what Saxe calls the "theater" of interrogation. "If the examiner does the theater well, and tricks the subject into believing that his or her lies can de detected, they might confess," he says.

 Related is the belief that polygraphs might be useful as a deterrent: if a sex offender believes he or she is going to be regularly subjected to accurate lie detection tests, committing a crime suddenly looks like a guarantee of heading back to prison. For both of these uses, it doesn't matter whether the test actually works or not, just that it's perceived as effective.

If it is interrogation theater, law enforcement may not really believe that polygraphs expose liars in any reliable way.

In fact, they are so sure that polygraphs are unreliable that they try to shut down people who teach how to control the outcome of a polygraph. If a polygraph could reliably identify lies, there would be no worries about someone teaching those countermeasures.

Instead, they worry.