The UK is quietly adopting a fraudulent method of detecting guilt in both Sexual Abuse & Domestic Violence cases. At the moment, the tests only apply to convicts – but in time they are likely to be rolled out everywhere. And that includes The Family Court System. This method has been proven to be so unreliable that it is downright dangerous, and is currently inadmissible in court. Not only has it put innocent people in jail in the past, but it has set guilty ones free. It relies on gauging stress, but who wouldn’t be stressed when talking to the police? It’s also very easy to counter, and there are numerous training videos online to help you do this. Yet it could become the standard for truth once more – with radical implications for the falsely accused. Particularly men accused of rape and domestic assault. I’m talking, of course, about Polygraph tests.
But Nobody Else Is
These tests are nonsense – let’s get that one right out of the way. They aren’t just unproven technology – they actively scam both the tester and the tested. Their real danger lies in the fact that they appear, on the surface, to do their job. Which is to say: they are ‘right often enough to be convincing when they are wrong’. And that is all the time.
Polygraphs actively blur the lines of truth by generating results that seem more significant than they really are. This is really bad news for innocent men accused of crimes – particularly emotive ones backed by subjective evidence. In cases such as rape, where there is already a drive to do away with due process, it could be disastrous.
Prof Chris Chambers, a psychologist at Cardiff University, put it more bluntly: “Polygraphs are bullshit. They have always been bullshit and they will always be bullshit.” – The Guardian
In fact, even experts can be fooled into thinking Polygraphs work. So why isn’t the media in uproar about their increasing use in the UK Justice system? You would expect at least some blowback over their use on terrorists. After all, a terrorist may even have practiced to beat the test. However, as far as we are aware, this is breaking news – with only one source mentioning it. Even they have missed the wider implications.
The Falsely Accused Will Be Subject To This Fraud
Nervous sweating, raised blood pressure, and a speedy heartbeat are not good metrics for determining lies. An hour is not enough to get a baseline on someone’s physiology or stress reactions. People become really nervous when the police wire them up to a scary ‘Lie Detector’. All in all you’d be better off flipping a coin. At least an inanimate object can’t be affected by you shouting or threatening it.
This Makes Polygraphs A Great Tool For Tricking The Suspect. And The Tester.
Pressure is a key way that the Police push a suspect into telling the truth – or simply saying too much. Ironically, this means that a fake Polygraph is actually better than a real one because it doesn’t fool whoever gives the test. And if it ended there, it would not be no problem. It’s that extra step of forging scientific evidence that’s so dangerous and so very seductive. Polygraph results look extremely official, and they occasionally ping actual lies, giving a sense that it really works. Thus the police – who watch the same films you do – may very well come to think of them as infallible.
Prof Albert Vrij, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth whose research focuses on deception and lie detection, said overconfidence of examiners in the accuracy of lie detectors was a common theme. “Although they often acknowledge that the test is not always accurate, they often seem to think that other examiners make incorrect judgments rather than they themselves. You never hear stories from polygraph examiners where they got it wrong.” – The Guardian
The system is currently being tested for deployment exactly the applications an MRA would be most worried about. That is – Domestic Violence, Sexual crimes, and the Family Courts. If the system actually worked, this would be amazing news – but as we have already shown, it does not. Unfortunately, the problem here is twofold:
If Polygraphs become standard, the Falsely Accused will be pressured into taking one – leaving them vulnerable to the system’s flaws. Your average abuse victim, accused by their abuser, is likely to show extremely abnormal stress reactions. They may suddenly be nervous when triggered by a bad memory, spiking the test. And simply being a victim of emotional abuse in an emotionally abusive situation will blur truth and fiction.
But even if the system never makes it far enough to pressure the Falsely Accused, it is already dangerous. Right now – Polygraphs are on trial as a method of judging if Terrorists, Domestic Abusers, and Rapists are reformed and ready for release. This has obvious implications for the public at large – since Polygraphs are very easy to trick. Simply knowing that the machine can’t actually spot lies is likely enough. But it also has massive implications for victims of rape and Domestic Violence. To put it bluntly – criminals are going to trick the system to get free, and then seek out their victims. And it’s possible they already have. By expanding the use of this system to the Family Court at large, victims will be harmed. This is especially true for male victims – who are already fighting to simply see justice in the first place.
If We Don’t Stop This Now, It Will Spread
MRAs will already be realising just how many ways these fraudulent tests could screw male victims. It has great potential to be used to victimise and vilify men in the secretive Family Courts. Standards are already lax, and many men already feel they went through a borderline show-trial. The inclusion of a hokum Polygraph test may lower court standards to that of a gameshow. An innocent man in Family Court forced to fend off weaponised false accusations is already a bad deal. Now imagine he has to explain them to a gimmicky movie prop:
Cop: “She says you sexually abused the kids.”
You: “I… What? I didn’t!!”
Cop: “Really? Well this machine says that question was stressful, therefore you are lying.”
You Can Stop This Insanity
This article is a Call To Action. We have the power to stop this. But to do so we need an army of activists to contact British MPs and newspapers about the Polygraph scam. Bad science cannot be allowed into the justice system, or we will see Polygraphs used in open court. We are already messaging British media outlets about this, but we need to raise a storm of protest. That means we need you to write in too and explain the situation. To that end, here are the tip lines for several major outlets:
If you do write in to any, please drop us a comment to let us know.
Want To Know More About Us?
MenAreHuman.com campaigns to raise awareness of critical human rights issues for men, but we need your help. We need people to help write articles for the site, and manage daily content. If you would like to help, the Men Are Human team is always available through our Discord. We also need to secure our future and promote the site, so any donations you would like to make will be gladly received. If you just want to keep up with our articles in future, please check out our Twitter. We are also on Gab if you prefer that.
Wow! I never thought of it quite like this! Thank you for posting!