NCJ Number
139584
Date Published
1992
Length
221 pages
Annotation
Video technology is employed for a wide range of purposes across the entire range of criminal justice agencies' processes.
Abstract
These processes include police recruit and in-service training, police investigatory work, police planning and analysis, pre-trial court proceedings, the trial, pre-trial or post-conviction detention, and post-conviction court proceedings. This research examined practices related to the use of video technology during police interrogations and suspect confessions to determine the issues of greatest concern to criminal justice practitioners as expressed in English language literature, the nature and extent of police use of video to document stationhouse interrogations, and the perceptions of criminal justice practitioners concerning the possible effects of videotaping interrogations and confessions upon various actors in the criminal justice system. The research was based upon a review of published research reports and criminal justice agency internal studies, a national survey administered by telephone to representatives of local police and county sheriffs' departments, and site visits entailing interviews with police personnel, prosecutors, public defenders, private defense attorneys, and judges in over a dozen cities and counties. One chapter of this report details the policy, procedural, and impact issues presented in the literature including, inter alia, police effectiveness, fairness to suspects, public perceptions of police and criminal justice system legitimacy, prosecutorial and defense counsel effectiveness, and quality of courtroom proceedings. The discussion of the nature and extent of police videotaping covers the prevalence of videotaping interrogations or confessions, types of cases in which suspect statements are taped, departmental procedures and practices, transcription, and frequency with which such videotapes are introduced as trial evidence. The final chapter examines how departments decided whether or not to use videotaped documentation, detective and prosecutorial attitudes toward videotaping, and the effects of videotaping on the processing and outcome of criminal cases. 30 figures, 20 notes, 508 references, and 2 appendixes