Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

22 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
given by suspects. Similar concerns were raised by some British police officers
who were initially resistant to the introduction of tape-recorded interrogations
(McConville & Morrell, 1983), but these have proved unfounded. In spite of
being against video-recorded interrogations, Inbau and his colleagues can see
the advantage in selected recording of confessions, but are concerned about the
consequences:
. . . while the videotaping of selected confessions may certainly be beneficial to
the prosecution, the practice opens the door for wider sweeping court rulings or
standards that could eventually require the videotaping of the entire interrogation
along with its subsequent confession for each and every suspect interrogated. In
the final analysis, would this be good for the criminal justice system? (Inbau et al.,
2001, pp. 395–396).
My answer is definitely yes. The electronic recording of all police interviews
and interrogations would be in the interests of justice, and it will come. It
would ensure that what happens in private within the walls of the interrogation
room becomes open to public scrutiny. This is clearly not what Inbau and his
colleagues want. They are undoubtedly right that electronic recording potentially
gives the defence useful material for disputing confessions at suppression
hearings, although it does of course also protect the police against unfounded
allegations.
The failure to record all interrogation sessions makes it difficult, if not impossible,
to retrospectively evaluate the entire interrogation process (e.g. what
was said and done by the interrogator to break down resistance and obtain a
confession).
There is no doubt that tape-recording, or video-recording, of police interviews
protects the police against false allegations as well as protecting the suspect
against police impropriety. It provides the court with the opportunity of hearing
and seeing the whole picture relating to the interrogation. It also has the
advantage of making it easy to systematically analyse and evaluate the entire
interrogation and confession process (Baldwin, 1993; Pearse & Gudjonsson,
1996a, 1999; Pearse, Gudjonsson, Clare & Rutter, 1998).
In England and Wales contemporaneous recording of statements, which are
handwritten by one of the interviewers, was implemented in 1986 as an interim
arrangement until tape recorders were introduced and installed at police
stations. Contemporaneous recording of statements meant that all questions
and answers in interviews had to be recorded. This inevitably slowed down
the interview process. Prior to that a taped or handwritten statement was produced
at the end of the interrogation session, which represented a summary of
what had emerged from the questions and answers. According to McConville
and Morrell (1983), ‘The main impetus behind the pressure to monitor police
interrogations has been a concern to ensure that suspects are fairly treated and
that evidence of alleged confessions is based on something more than the bare
word of the interrogators’ (p. 162).
Since 1991 there has been mandatory tape-recording of any person suspected
of an indictable offence who is interviewed under caution (English & Card, 1999;
Ord & Shaw, 1999). Prior to that date routine tape-recording of interviews had
already commenced at some stations on an experimental basis (Baldwin, 1993).