ORDEAL OF THE “THIRD DEGREE.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2622, 2 October 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

ORDEAL OF THE “THIRD DEGREE.”

STRANGE METHODS OF NEW YORK DETECTIVES.

A vivid description of the system known as “the third degree,” by which New Yoi'k police endeavor to obtain confessions from criminals, is given by Inspector MeCaffertv. of the Manhattan detective force.

This is the first official explanation of the process, and is made in reply to considerable foreign criticism of New York police methods in which the fairness of the system has been questioned. Inspector McCafrerty, who- is chief of the detective bureau, says: “If you are suspected of committing a crime, say, murder, you will be brought before .me and you will tell me exactly how you found the body. But before I see you your entire past will be investigated; your habits, your mode of life, and possible motives for the murder. Then you are brought here to my office, and I look you over. I have already a fair idea of your personality through my knowledge of your life. 'This combined knowledge determines the form of the ‘mental inquisition’ to which you will be subjected

“No two men are put through the same third degree. It would not work if they were. Every man’s vital spot is located in a different part of his brain. I have to appeal to a different quality in every suspect. If you are, for instance, an educated, intelligent young man, I should hammer at your brain and imniagination. You would tell me over and.over again, from every possible angle, the details of the crime. I would picture for you vividly the horror of the thing that has been done. “In your case, inasmuch as you are a fairly high-grade man, it- is probable that I should use no tangible evidence to heighten the mental effects. All my energy would be bent on subjugating your brain to mine. By making you repeat your actions on the night of the crime, I should hope to entangle you. By appeals to your imagination I would hope to break you down. SHADOWED. “If I could not break you down I should have to let you go, jf there were no direct evidence against you. But, if I were sure of your gilt in my own mind, you would be followed. You would know nothing of it, but you would be watched for months. It would be a pretty hard thing for you to get rid of any money you might have stolen at the time of the murder.

“A more stolid man of limited intelligence is treated differently. A dull intellect needs something tangible to bring the crime home to it- Take, for instance, the man who killed the clerk in Mills Hotel No.l i(New York’s Rowton House). Questioning and threats did not shake him. He broke down when I suddenly thrust into his face the bar of iron with which the murder had been committed. It is all a question of the weaker mind breaking before the stronger, only in some cases there is no mind to break. Then we have to help the mental picture with pictures that the eye can see. Hie tempermental highly-strung man . breaks down first. The more stupid a man is the harder he is to impress. “It is a strange thing that they all give way suddenly, and break down completely when they do throw up their hands.”