Joseph P. Buckley III

Joseph P. Buckley III is President of John E. Reid and Associates in Chicago, Illinois, where he has been employed since 1971 and has served as president since 1982. He has conducted in excess of 10,000 interviews and interrogations and has been an instructor in the Reid training programs seminars for over 5 decades. Buckley holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Loyola University. Following John Reid's death in 1982, Buckley assumed leadership of the company, which by 2013 trained "more interrogators than any other company in the world".

Buckley's research contributions to polygraph science span field validity studies and the psychophysiological detection of deception. His 1975 study with Stanley M. Slowik examined the relative accuracy of polygraph examiner diagnosis across different physiological channels (respiration, blood pressure, and GSR recordings). He served on the 1983 Office of Technology Assessment Polygraph Validity Advisory Panel, contributing to the influential OTA report on polygraph scientific validity. Beyond polygraph research, Buckley became a leading authority on interview and interrogation techniques, contributing to the refinement and dissemination of the Reid Technique, a systematic approach to behavioral analysis and suspect interrogation that has been adopted by law enforcement agencies worldwide.

Buckley is co-author of multiple influential books including The Investigator Anthology and Criminal Interrogation and Confessions (multiple editions), as well as numerous articles and papers. The book Criminal Interrogation and Confessions, co-authored with Fred E. Inbau and John E. Reid, has been quoted by the U.S. Supreme Court and is considered a textbook for proper interview and interrogation. He is a contributing author to the Encyclopedia of Police Science and the Encyclopedia of Security Management, and is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the American Society for Industrial Security, the American Management Association, and the Chicago Crime Commission. His frequent collaborators included John E. Reid, Fred E. Inbau, and Brian C. Jayne, forming a core team that shaped modern investigative interviewing practices.

Buckley's work bridges law enforcement practice, psychology, and legal procedure. While the Reid Technique has faced criticism regarding false confessions, Buckley has actively defended the methodology through research validation and training reforms. His influence extends across multiple disciplines—from the psychophysiology of deception detection to the legal and ethical dimensions of obtaining confessions—making him a central but sometimes controversial figure in criminal justice and credibility assessment.