Psychological and Legal Issuesof Using Polygraph in Law Enforcement

Introduction. To reveal involvement or non-involvement in the commission of offenses and crimes is the subject of current debate among scientists, lawyers and psychologists. Lack of comprehensive researches on this issue, insufficient knowledge of the mental processes in the human brain, legislators' and law enforcers' ambiguous perception of the results obtained via polygraph indicate the necessity of considering this topic. The purpose is to summarize the materials of judicial practice on the problems of using a polygraph. Materials and Methods. Achieving this goal was accomplished through the use of general scientific and private scientific research methods. Results and Discussions. Psychophysiological studies via polygraph and the results obtained in this case are successfully used in many foreign countries, for example, in the USA, Japan, and the Republic of Belarus. In Russia, the use of the results obtained via polygraph is controversial, and judicial practice is contradictory. Conclusions. Currently, the researches on psychophysiological states of a person are still in the stage of deep cognition, study and analysis, which does not make it possible to unambiguously interpret and apply the results obtained via polygraph in practical investigative and judicial activities, but only to employ them to obtain additional information on the past events.