Police Interrogation Tactics
A confession at any cost In the United States, law enforcement officers are infamously known for violating average citizen’s constitutional rights in order to get a confession. Instead of being innocent ‘til proven guilty, the roles are actually swapped. The minute you are booked for an alleged crime you may have committed, your chances of walking away are slim. But is this actually feasible? Is the law enforcement that is supposedly there to protect us, in reality harming us?
Imagine you are at home watching the local news. You see the police searching for a robber that is your doppelganger. Your neighbor, John, whose window was broken by your son’s baseball sees this same report, decides to call the police to report that the suspect is his neighbor and is currently home. The police come, and arrest you on reasonable suspicion. The commissioner of the task force has been hassling the department for months to catch this guy, and if they can’t get the confession, they are off the case.
Terrified of your predicament, worried about your family, and no one answering any of your questions, you start feeling a panic attack come on. As you are about to go insane for the never ending silence, finally the detective
…show more content…
In fact, the minute they bring someone in on reasonable suspicion, there is an 80% chances of the suspect being the guilty party. Therefore, beyond reasonable doubt a blurred line is established. Detectives have evidence to bring in the suspect, getting them to confess becomes the mission of the case. Whether or not they are innocent or guilty doesn’t matter, for chances are their suspect is in fact guilty. And the faster they book someone, the better their arrest record gets, and the further they can advance their career. If it means overlook some information and just aim to get the confession, to pull an arrest, it will
In order to incriminate Danial Williams, Joseph Dick, Eric Wilson, and Derek Tice with the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko, Detectives Maureen Evans and Robert Ford conducted long, grueling interrogation sessions using many provocative and manipulative tactics. Throughout this process, Ford and Evans coerced the suspects into renegotiating their perception of the crime until an entirely new reality was created. This new reality evolved as the police elicited additional confessionary evidence to account for each new piece of physical evidence from the crime scene. Eventually, in an iterative process that had police editing their theories of the crime and then forcing the suspects to claim this new reality as their own, the reconciled reality of the crime became one that was consistent with both the criminal evidence and the suspects’ new perception. An analysis of empirical m...
Police officers have a substantial amount of responsibilities that are required to be upheld on an everyday basis. They are said to be the “front-line soldiers” in the criminal justice system (Fleming, Ramcharan, Dowler, & de Lint, 2007, p. 2) meaning they’re the first in the government to have face-to-face communication with the potential offender. “To Protect & Serve” is a broad motto that sums up the duties of a good police officer. Their role begins when a report to the police is made, actions or suspicions of a crime is present, and/or following an investigation made by the law enforcement (Fleming, Ramcharan, Dowler, & de Lint, 2007, p. 2). Typical tasks officers are engaged in are: to preserve the peace, prevent crime, enforce the law, investigate crimes, lay charges, etc (Fleming, Ramcharan, Dowler, de Lint, 2007, p. 105) but there is more to what is generally mentioned by the public, online sources, articles, books, and even the police themselves. Officers not only conduct a criminal investigation, but they also decide whether or not to proceed with obtaining an arrest which is a serious step in the justice process (Fleming, Ramcharan, Dowler, & de Lint, 2007, p. 2 & 4). Authors of The Canadian Criminal Justice System (2007, p. 4) states that because it is impossible to convict every single person who has broken...
“Police throughout the United States have been caught fabricating, planting, and manipulating evidence to obtain convictions where cases would otherwise be very weak. Some authorities regard police perjury as so rampant that it can be considered a "subcultural norm rather than an individual aberration" of police officers. Large-scale investigations of police units in almost every major American city have documented massive evidence of tampering, abuse of the arresting power, and discriminatory enforcement of laws. There also appears to be widespread police perjury in the preparation of reports because police know these reports will be used in plea bargaining. Officers often justify false and embellished reports on the grounds that it metes out a rough justice to defendants who are guilty of wrongdoing but may be exonerated on technicalities.”
The relationship between law enforcement and prosecutors, which goes hand-in-hand, can’t be overlooked. Evidence of a crime that detectives and law enforcement discover is as equally important as a good trial on part of the prosecution. If detectives aren’t able to find good solid evidence – that case usually isn’t bothered in being pursued. Several years ago, in the late 80’s, there was a murder case in Southeastern Oklahoma which now serves as a tragic example to the need for honest, constitutional work in the criminal justice system. Disreputable investigative procedures, fraudulent sources, and bad evidence were the foundation of this case that shattered innocent lives.
Now, to the layman, that appears simply to be a frame up – when you arrest and charge and find the evidence subsequently. To make matters worse, when we examine the manner in which that evidence was put forward by the prosecution (a matter for which the director of Public Prosecutions must be held responsible), we find some startling inconsistencies, strange and frightening things. Like one man giving three statements. – two of them before Arnold Rampersaud was arrested, never mentioning the accused or anything to do with the accused. A third statement made after he had been arrested conveniently mentions the accused.
Stop and Frisk is a procedure put into use by the New York Police Department that allows an officer to stop and search a “suspicious character” if they consider her or him to be. The NYPD don’t need a warrant, or see you commit a crime. Officers solely need to regard you as “suspicious” to violate your fourth amendment rights without consequences. Since its Beginning, New York City’s stop and frisk program has brought in much controversy originating from the excessive rate of arrest. While the argument that Stop and Frisk violates an individual’s fourth amendment rights of protection from unreasonable search and seizure could definitely be said, that argument it’s similar to the argument of discrimination. An unfair number of Hispanics and
Even those who should have a clear sense of the an interrogation, fail to see the coercion brought upon the suspect that might lead to a false confession, and once a confession has been made, false or true, detectives or police terminates their investigation that could have found potential evidence to exonerate them. Once a confession is obtained, police tend to ‘‘close’’ cases as solved and refuse to investigate other sources of evidence (Leo and Liu) which is why such a high number of innocent people still remain behind bars. Across samples, police-induced false confessions were evident in between 15 and 25% in cases, making it one of the likely leading causes of wrongful conviction (Leo and Liu), but still juries disregard this evidence! Unfortunately, more cases like Rivers are out there. According to the Washington Post, the National Registry ha logged 1,733 exonerating cases of false confession. In one case, a man by the name of Ricky Jackson spent four decades for a crime he did not commit, only to be exonerated by DNA evidence after 40 years. To emphasize, few states, if any at all, courts provides information to the jury regarding how to assess voluntariness, nor do
The evidence discovered during the investigation suggested to the police that OJ Simpson may have had something to do with this murder and they obtained an arrest warrant. The investigators believed that they “knew” OJ Simpson committed the murders. His lawyers and him were informed of the arrest warrant and agreed to a specified time when OJ would turn himself into authorities. Investigators are later admonished, by the defense, on how they handled the crime scene.
Law enforcement in the United States is being perceived as a dangerous, toxic force that cannot be trusted by society. People used to trust law enforcement and come to them in a time of need for protection or help. Media has pointed out only a few corrupt people in authority abusing their power, creating fear in the public’s eye. Although these concerns are spreading throughout the nation, New Mexico is also worried as well. In order to possibly solve this issue, New Mexicans need to show more respect for law enforcement officers because most of them are not practicing racism, abusing power, or using unnecessary violent force. Society has created this image of police officers as these monsters that are in fact practicing racism, abusing their
Because police investigators are usually under pressure to arrest criminals and safeguard the community, they often make mistakes. Sometimes, detectives become convinced of a suspect 's guilt because of their criminal history or weak speculations. Once they are convinced, they are less likely to consider alternative possibilities. They overlook some important exculpatory evidence, make weak speculations and look only for links that connect a suspect to a crime, especially if the suspect has a previous criminal record. Picking Cotton provides an understanding of some common errors of the police investigation process. During Ronald Cottons interrogation, the detectives did not bother to record the conversation “But I noticed he wasn 't recording the conversation, so I felt that he could be writing anything down”(79) unlike they did for Jennifer. They had already labelled Ronald Cotton as the perpetrator and they told him during the interrogation “Cotton, Jennifer Thompson already identified you. We know it was you”(82). Jenifer Thompson 's testimony along with Ronald Cotton 's past criminal records gave the detectives more reason to believe Ronald committed the crime. Ronald Cotton stated “ This cop Sully, though, he had already decided I was guilty.”(84). Many investigative process have shortcomings and are breached because the officials in charge make
In the recent years the CIA have been getting questions based on the laws and policies they face when dealing with enhance interrogation. Even though the CIA concluded that torture was not authorized and that it would not be accepted, it has come out that they still practice it (Blakeley, 547). At a press conference, John Brennan talked about these practices. Brennan announced that the CIA is aware they have failed to follow the guidelines and they used unauthorized techniques. He then assured us that it was only a select few officers are guilty of using the unauthorized techniques (Brenan, 2014). After the 9/11 attacks and the outbreak of enhanced interrogation, many people are starting to question the CIA about tel the truth about using such
There is a one in two chance that the guilty person will give alibi evidence
Therefore, false confessions have become so problematic that it is has been putting innocent individuals in danger of their freedom. As well, many wrongful conviction cases are viewed in the Innocence Project which “documents that approximately 25% of it’s cases of post-conviction DNA exonerations involved false confessions” (Henkel et. al., 2008, p. 556). If false confessions is such a big issue, why has anyone not study the ways to prevent them? Police-induced tactics are constantly used behind closed doors in interrogation rooms to coerce the individual to confess. Although, many jurors “do not view the use of minimization tactics used during interrogation as coercive” (Appleby, Hasel, & Kassin, 2013, p. 117). Thus, jurors can be unaware
The prosecutor and criminal investigator square measure 2 cogs that have to work along to achieve success in making an attempt a criminal case. The prosecutor should swear upon the investigator to tell them of all aspects of the case that they designed, and the investigator must accept the functionary to achieve justice for the victim, their family, and the community. Any criminal trial is an adversarial match between the functionary and the defense and facets either side can use all the data on the market to them to induce a win for his or her side.
In our times, the police have become the criminals. Some police are using their power to do bad things, and society has come to fear police. The law enforcement system needs change. The courts have failed the police, and the police have turn to other means of justice. We must stop the corruption in the police force.