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Psychologist
is also polygraph examiner
(October
2005 Issue)
Destiny works in mysterious ways. For Randall Wallace, Psy.D.,
something as simple as a typo wound up propelling him along a path
he had no idea he would find so interesting and satisfying.
As the juvenile coordinator for the Center for Treatment of Problem
Sexual Behaviors in Hartford, Conn., Wallace oversees a program
that deals primarily with adolescents who have been convicted of
sexual abuse. Then, after a 40-hour week of working with adolescents,
he spends several nights and weekends sitting opposite convicted
adult sexual offenders doing polygraph tests.
It's a somewhat unique niche, being both psychologist and polygraph
examiner, a path that Wallace started upon literally by accident.
He spoke with New England Psychologist's Catherine Robertson
Souter about his career.
Q: First, tell us about your work.
A: I basically have two jobs. At the Center for Treatment of Problem
Sexual Behaviors we do evaluation and treatment of youths on an
outpatient basis. Then, my second job is as a polygrapher. I do
post-conviction sexual offender testing. That is a private practice
where people send referrals to me - all adults. In Connecticut,
you can't see a juvenile for a polygraph below the age of 16.
Q: How did you get started in your choices of career?
A: Well, as far as working with sex offenders, when I was an
undergrad, I was assigned to a practicum at a juvenile probation
office. I was supposed to do the practicum with a woman named Alice
who had a general caseload of juvenile probation but they sent me
to a woman named Alison who worked only with juvenile sexual abuse.
It took five months to figure out that I was in the wrong slot,
but by then I liked what I was doing. Since then, I've worked with
adults too but I have mostly come back to working with juveniles.
It's more work but I find it to be more rewarding.
Q: Why is that?
A: Juveniles are more amenable to clinical intervention. We
do a lot more things like role-playing or large body movements to
stimulate the brain. Juveniles are also more likely to make changes.
You don't have the higher levels of pathology that you might see
with the adults. A lot of times these are just kids who have developmentally
gone astray and crossed over some boundaries. The research shows
that over 90% of juveniles will not go on to sexually offend. So,
really our goal is to make sure we can maximize that number as much
as possible. We help them with issues like developing social skills,
with school, peers, family. A lot of it has nothing to do with sexual
abuse. It's a very interesting and diverse area to work with.
Q: So, how did you end up doing lie detector testing?
A: That was really a fortunate opportunity. When I worked as
the assistant clinical director for the Justice Resource Institute
in Massachusetts, my company paid for me to go to polygraph training.
I didn't even end up doing it at the treatment center because they
could not work out the logistical problems about how the information
would be used. Q:What are the tests trying to ascertain?
A:We do three types of tests. The first is a full sexual history.
There is a tricky balance there. The information will be going to
the therapist and a summary to the probation office so they can
provide treatment based on these disclosures. But, if you have them
recording past crimes and identifying victims, you have to report
on that. If you convict on the information that they give to you,
nobody is going to report anything. So, they are not asked to identify
the victims by name or any identifying information. In a perfect
world, we could get the victims' names and make sure they get help.
Q: The results are used by probation officers to decide what
level of security this person needs?
A: Well, to help with. Polygraph should never be used as the
primary resource of decision-making. Like any other psychological
tool, it should be one tool to use out of a variety of sources to
make a decision.
Polygraph is not perfect. You can't rely totally on its accuracy.
It's the same reason you wouldn't give someone an MMPI and make
a full clinical decision based solely on the results. It's an assessment
tool and that's all it is.
Q: What are the other two tests that you perform?
A: One is called a specific offense test to confirm whether
or not they committed the crime that they were convicted for. For
instance, an abuser will say that he only admitted to it in court
because he didn't want to go to prison but then he comes to therapy
and says he didn't really do it. The treatment provider can have
me come in and test to find out if he did it or not. The selling
point of polygraph is what they call its utility, the ability to
elicit information and to confirm that the guy is being compliant.
I saw a lot of that as a clinician. I was able to see people progress
in treatment and get through the denial rather than debating for
a year over whether somebody did something. You can go in and get
a polygraph done and it really gets that cleaned up kind of quickly.
The final test is the one that we do the most. It's called maintenance
test and it is used to determine if he is in compliance with the
probation treatment. We are looking for things like have they been
using alcohol, reading pornography, been alone with children, using
illegal drugs, been with prostitutes, etc. This can also be called
monitoring.
Q: Do people tend to be more honest because they figure the
machine will out them anyway, so why bother lying?
A: Yes. For example, we give them a maintenance booklet with
40 to 45 pages of different questions that they fill out. Most of
the information that we generate in terms of disclosures is in that
booklet before they ever see me. It's just the knowledge of having
the polygraph coming that makes them be more honest.
There are some new studies being done. In one, they found out that
with a moderately high-risk group, knowing that the first polygraph
was coming doesn't serve as a deterrent. But after they took the
first polygraph, they had to deal with the consequences of their
behavior. Then, the subsequent polygraph did serve as a deterrent.
They basically had to test the system to see if there would be any
consequences and then they started to lower their inappropriate
behaviors.
In another study in Colorado, they had two sets of populations,
inmate and parolee. The guys who were in prison were told that in
order to get out of prison, they had to disclose their full sexual
histories and pass the polygraph. And there weren't any consequences
provided they didn't provide any identifying information. In that
situation, they got a tremendous amount of disclosure. The parolees,
who were already out, were essentially told that they didn't get
any rewards for disclosure and any crimes you report out were convictable.
They made virtually no disclosures.
Q: Who would?
A: Exactly. It's really a system issue. If you just have a polygraph
where you don't have a system working together, it's not a highly
effective tool.
Q: From a business standpoint, is this a good field to get into?
A: Well, New England is an interesting area. When I looked at
this five or six years ago, it was one of the more underdeveloped
areas for using polygraphs. You can look at that two ways. There
may be potential to tap into this as a resource but also there may
not be the same kind of demand. I found it to be beneficial to my
area of expertise but I think that it's important to offer some
skill sets in addition to it. For example, I only do sexual offender
polygraphs. It is my area of knowledge and I feel like I have more
to offer in terms of the exam.
It can be used as an additional tool to add to your repertoire
and in the right niche there is certainly some financial opportunity.
It's particularly beneficial if you're doing forensic psychology.
The problem with it, the reason we don't have a lot of people out
there, is that it is relatively expensive to train and most programs
are eight to 10 weeks, full-time. So, taking two to three months
out of your schedule and then paying a lot of money and then paying
for the equipment and then being supervised and then finding somebody
who will refer to you … that's why we don't have more people doing
it.
Q: Are there many psychologists who do polygraph testing?
A: No, the vast majority are not psychologists. Most are police
officers, FBI, CIA, probation and parole officers. Obviously, I'm
biased but I think that psychologists are uniquely qualified to
do this. I think that psychologists have a better understanding
of the psychological influence on the physiological reaction as
opposed to somebody whose whole training has been focused on interrogation.
Other professions certainly add their contributions to it but I'd
like to see more psychologists added to the field.
Q: How could someone find out more?
A: To learn about polygraph examinations, check the American
Polygraph Association Web site (www.poly graph.org). If you want
to know more about the clinical work I do with sexual offenders,
go to the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (www.atsa.com).
People are also welcome to contact me. I'm always happy to talk
to people.
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