John E. Reid

John E. Reid was a polygraph expert and former Chicago police officer who started his own polygraph consultation business in 1947. Reid held an LLB from De Paul University and served as Director of John E. Reid and Associates, a firm that would become one of the most influential training organizations in the field of interrogation and polygraph examination. Reid, a law graduate who had worked in the Chicago Police Department, published manuals together with Fred E. Inbau, a Northwestern University lawyer and criminologist.

Reid's most significant contribution to polygraph science was developing the CQT, the polygraph testing procedure that replaced Keeler's Relevant/Irrelevant Question technique as the most widely used technique. Between 1945 and 1947, John E. Reid developed the polygraph technique called CQT, which incorporated control questions designed to differentiate physiological responses between truthful and deceptive subjects. Beyond his polygraph methodology, Reid developed "The Reid Technique," an interrogation method developed in the United States during the 1950s. He co-authored with Professor Fred E. Inbau of Northwestern University Law School Truth & Deception, The Polygraph (Lie-Detector) Technique and Criminal Interrogation and Confessions, with the first edition of the latter published in 1962.

The first edition of the "Reid Manual" (Criminal Interrogation and Confessions) in 1962, was severely criticized by the US Supreme Court, and its famous Miranda v. Arizona warnings were made in large part in response to the psychological subjugation and risks of the Reid techniques. Despite controversy over false confessions, Reid died in 1982, and by 2013, the company trained "more interrogators than any other company in the world". In 1955 in Lincoln, Nebraska, John E. Reid had gained a confession from Darrel Parker for the rape and murder of Parker's wife, Nancy. This case established Reid's reputation and popularized his technique, though Parker was later exonerated. Reid's field validity studies and work on polygraph examiner reliability contributed to the empirical foundation of Comparison Question Test methodology.

Reid's work bridged law enforcement practice, psychology, and legal procedure. His collaboration with Fred E. Inbau united psychological principles with legal standards for admissible evidence, creating training protocols that influenced interrogation practices across North America and beyond. His publications spanned several decades, from his 1947 introduction of the Control Question Test through his final works in the 1980s on interviewing and interrogation for law enforcement.