Alabama Polygraph

March 9, 2007

The use of polygraph as a means of deterring convicted child sexual offenders from re-offending, has been used in several states in the United States since the mid 1980’s. Over the years it has become more widely used in most states of the United States at the present time. However, some jurisdictions are hung up about using this unique tool because of their preconceived ideas about polygraph. Recently the use of polygraph for child sexual offenders has been studied in Great Britain and was found to be very effective both in the deterrence and education about what makes a child sexual offender tick. Polygraph is now used in Great Britain for child sexual offenders. There are however, detractors who say that it is not effective. Usually these detractors are so called professionals who have never been actively involved in one of these programs. Anyone (even the professional who went in with a preconceived mind) who has ever participated in such a program, quickly comes to realize, that polygraph is very effective in maintaining compliance.

The child sexual offender is a unique individual. These people do not look any different than the rest of the population and may not exhibit outwardly in public anything that would give away their perverted view of sex. They very diligently at not letting people know of their proclivity for children. They even seem to have a more intense fear of detection than the so called normal population. Since fear of detection and not ones ability to lie is what polygraph is based upon, it seems to work better with this segment of the population. Even if a judge or prosecutor who is convinced polygraph does not work, should closely examine the jurisdictions that are using polygraph in this area and see if the programs are working. Every court in the United States should at least investigate the use of polygraph as a means of keeping child sexual offenders in check and helping to protect our greatest natural resource from these fiends.

Many courts will agree that polygraph works but say they can’t afford such a program.  Most of these offenders are not indigent and can pay their own way for the testing. The ones that are truly indigent will have to receive free testing. Most polygraph examiners realize this and will work with the court system to provide for this small segment of offenders. Most every jurisdiction in the country has a program similar to this for DUI offenders and other traffic offences. Do they think the sexual abuse of children is less important than a speeder?

Polygraph Accuracy

Over my thirty years in the polygraph business I’ve heard many negative comments about its effectiveness and accuracy.  And it always seems that these comments always come from people who have absolutely no direct knowledge of polygraph and how it works. This negativity comes from congressmen and senators, judges and state legislators and many other folks who have never even seen a polygraph examination administered, much less examined any studies performed by some of the most reputable institutions of higher learning and governmental agencies in this country.

I remember when I first was asked by my boss at the Alabama Bureau of Investigation if I would like to attend polygraph school I had absolutely no knowledge of polygraph. He told me the U.S. Army had just relocated their military police school to Fort McClellan, Alabama and with it, their polygraph school. I told him I would like to attend, mainly because it seemed he thought it would be a good idea. 

When I arrived at the school, which is now known as the Department of Defense Polygraph Institute, in August, 1976, I was completely in the dark as to what I was about to experience. After a couple of weeks of learning the basics of how polygraph works and learning how to operate the equipment we began testing soldiers. The thing that makes this school unique is that they have an endless supply of people to learn how to test on. Each morning they would bring ten soldiers over to the school. There were ten students in my class, so we each had a person to conduct a test on.

They would take two or three of the ten soldiers and create a “mock” crime for them to have committed. This included things like a robbery, theft, etc. It was our job as students to conduct tests on them to determine who was guilty. This testing never ceased to amaze me how we students “rank novices” that we were, would invariably come up with the right answer every single day.  To this day when I hear some nay sayer knocking the accuracy of polygraph I wish just one of them would go and witness how miraculous this system really is.

According to the American Polygraph Association over 250 studies have been conducted on the accuracy of polygraph testing during the past 25 years. Based on the studies now available, experts have determined the accuracy of polygraph examinations administered by a competent examiner to be about 90%.  The level of skill and experience of the examiner plays a key role in the accuracy of the examination.  Comparative studies have also shown that polygraph examinations yield an accuracy that equals or exceeds that of many other forms of evidence.  In fact, in one study it shows that polygraph examination produced an accuracy that was comparable to results obtained by document examiners and finger print analysts, and exceeded that of eyewitnesses.  Most errors in polygraph can be blamed for an inexperienced examiner.