Recorded Interrogations

Paper Summary:

This paper presents several reasons for mandating the recording of police interviews. The writer explains that by recording police interviews, conditions will be more humane for the interviewee, the risk of coercing false confessions from suspects will be reduced, and a win-win situation for all parties concerned, the suspect, the police conducting the interview(s), the courts and the victims, will be the end result. The paper provides a recent example that illustrates how using a recording could have prevented a number of abuses in the past and thus concludes that recordings should be mandatory in similar situations.

From the Paper:

"A look at why many police departments have embraced the practice and many individual police officers have changed their respective minds about employing such recording devices leads many experts to believe that every police interrogation conducted should be recorded. The purpose behind most interrogations is to gather information that the person being interrogated does not normally wish to provide. Sometimes threats (real and implied) have to be integrated into the interview process in order to discern what really happened, what events actually took place. An additional factor in the process is that the punishment for the person being interrogated can be substantial if the information is derived from the interview. This is an added incentive for the suspect to keep his mouth shut."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Inbau, F.E.; (1999) Legal pitfalls to avoid in criminal interrogations, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 89, No. 4, pp. 1363 - 1369
• M.H., (2001) Untrue confessions, Texas Monthly, Vol. 29, No. 1, p. 97
• Sullivan, T.P.; (2005) Electronic recording of custodial interrogations: Everybody wins, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 95, No. 3, pp. 1127 - 1144
• Sullivan, T.P.; (2005) We telephoned departments that we believed recorded custodial interviews and asked them to name others that record. Two firms that specialize in training police, John E. Reid and Associates, Inc. and Wicklander Zulawski & Associates, Inc., asked departments they had trained to complete our questionnaire. See THOMAS P. SULLIVAN, CENTER ON WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS SPECIAL REPORT: POLICE EXPERIENCES WITH RECORDING CUSTODIAL INTERROGATIONS 10-13 (2004), available at http://www.jenner.com/policestudy; Thomas P. Sullivan, Police Experience with Recording Custodial Interrogations, JUDICATURE, Nov.-Dec. 2004, at 132; Thomas P. Sullivan, The Police Experience: Recording Custodial Interrogations, CHAMPION, Dec. 2004, at 24; Thomas P. Sullivan, Recording Custodial Interrogations: The Police Experience, FED. LAW., Jan. 2005, at 20; Thomas P. Sullivan, Recording Custodial Interrogations, L. & ORD., Mar. 2005, at 46.
• Vessel, D.; (1998) Conducting successful interrogations, FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Vol. 67, No 10, pp. 1 - 6

More papers on Recorded Interrogations:

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• Essay # 12758 : "Criminal Confessions"

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