HAMLYN - College of Social Sciences and International Studies ...

Criminal Justice
were silent in the police station were convicted, often after
pleading guilty. In the control group consisting of suspects who
did answer questions, the proportion convicted, curiously, was
slightly lower {77 per cent)! 59 The researchers, one of whom was
a senior police office, commented, "Abolishing the right to
silence might reduce the irritation felt by the police, but would
probably do little to increase the number of successful prosecutions".
That was always my own assessment.
Some might say that if it makes little difference in practice,
why all the fuss about the importance of the right to silence. For
me "the fuss" was not only about the likely dangers especially
to the innocent, but the point of principle that if the burden of
proof lies on the prosecution, it is wrong to penalise the suspect
for refusing to assist the police with their inquiries. (It is worth
noting that a Parliamentary Committee in the State of Victoria,
having come to this country to study Michael Howard's reform,
recommended earlier this year that it not be copied there. 60 )
Perhaps the most useful recently introduced safeguard for the
suspect in the police station is tape-recording of interviews. The
original object was both to discourage improper police questioning
and to provide evidence of it when it occurs. The police,
understandably, started very hostile but quickly came to see its
value—having the suspect's confession on tape increases the
proportion of guilty pleas. The tapes also reduce courtroom
battles over what the suspect did or did not say. A side-benefit
has been that the tapes provide valuable raw material both for
research and for police training. It turns out from such research
by Professor John Baldwin, that general ineptitude in questioning
is statistically a much greater problem than unacceptable
methods of questioning. 61 In a sample of 600 interviews,
59 S. Moston, G. Stephenson, T. Williamson, "The Incidence, Antecedents and
Consequences of the Use of the Right of Silence During Police Questioning",
Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health (1993), p. 3.
60 State of Victoria Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee, Inquiry into the
Right of Silence (March 1999).
61 J. Baldwin, Video Taping Police Interviews with Suspects—an Evaluation (Police
Research Series, No. 1, Home Office, 1992). A quarter of the 600 interviews
were "not very well conducted" and 11 per cent were conducted "poorly".
(Table 3, p. 14) Contrary to mythology, "four out of every five were with such
co-operative or compliant individuals that they should have presented no
serious difficulty to a moderately competent interviewer" (p. 18).
Unsurprisingly, it seems that the police do use unacceptable methods more
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