NCJ Number
85651
Journal
British Journal of Law and Society Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: (Summer 1981) Pages: 109-117
Date Published
1981
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This essay critiques the British Royal Commission's positions on police interrogation of suspects in custody.
Abstract
Britain's main guidelines for and controls over police methods of interrogation lie in the Judges' Rules drawn up in 1912. The Rules provide that confessions or statements can only be used as evidence if they are given voluntarily. The Royal Commission on Criminal Procedure has concluded, however, that the voluntariness of a suspect's statement is impossible to determine. Under the Commission's position on suspect interrogation questioning is to continue without any regulation other than the forbidding of torture or inhuman and degrading treatment. Constraints on police are to depend on a code of practice regulating the conditions but not the content of interviews, on the new rules of arrest (including limitation on the length of time a suspect can be held in custody uncharged), and on rights for the suspect to communication and to legal advice. The terms of the proposed code, with its provisos and allowance for discretion, make it susceptible to abuse, evasion, and unenforceability. Civil actions against those who break the code are allowed, but award of costs to the citizen is paid from police funds, thus eliminating any sanction against the individual officer involved. The Commission rejects both the idea of questioning by magistrates and having some monitor or witness to police interrogation. The Commission proposes that the primary duty to ensure the rules are obeyed rests with the police service itself. The Commission's degree of faith in the professional integrity of the police is due largely to police politics and image building over the last decade. Thirty-two notes and references are listed.