NCJ Number
232261
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 26 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2010 Pages: 426-440
Date Published
November 2010
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This article compares the ways in which English-speaking jurisdictions have responded to concerns about practices in the police interrogation of suspects.
Abstract
This article contrasts the ways in which English-speaking jurisdictions have responded to concerns about practices in the police interrogation of suspects. Since the mid-1990s, a stark contrast has developed between the methods taught to North American police officers via the "Reid Technique" and similar United States training programs and the strategy of "investigative interviewing" in England and Wales (and increasingly elsewhere in Europe and Australasia). This policy divergence must be understood in the context of differing responses to miscarriages of justice and investigative failures (caused, at least in part, by inefficient interrogation techniques) and the knowledge which inquiries into these miscarriages and failures produced. While investigative interviewing is part of a response to criminal process failure which sees both wrongful convictions and failed prosecutions as problematic, the United States has been slow to acknowledge the scale of a problem which has not only convicted (and executed) the innocent, but also failed to bring the guilty to justice. Drawing on empirical research in Australia, where audio-visual recording has been used routinely since the early 1990s, the article notes the limits and benefits of electronic recording, which too often is presented as a panacea. The article notes that most discussion of American interrogation takes place in an empirical vacuum and expresses doubts about the prevalent accounts of police practice. It also notes some recent interest in the United States in alternative approaches to interrogating suspects which have developed from the experience of questioning terrorist suspects. Notes and references (Published Abstract)