Media Technology and Police Interrogations

Video and audio are used to provide reliable recordings for the courts of interrogations and confessions occurring in police custody. Currently in the United States, recordings of confessions are more common than recordings of full interrogations.

Recording police interrogations reduces the risks of false confessions, protects the police against charges of using coercive tactics, improves the quality of interrogations, aids in monitoring by supervisors, and reduces court time. Recordings may be video or audio. Video recordings provide a more complete record of events, including body language. It is a law enforcement tool widely endorsed by law enforcement officers who have used it. Diverse local and international organizations, such as the New York County Lawyers' Association, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture, have called for the technique to be widely adopted and regulated.

Illinois became the first state in the United States to require electronic recording of all custodial interrogations in homicide investigations in 2005, followed by Maine and the District of Columbia. Hundreds of individual police departments across the country currently record interrogations, many doing so without the aid of written regulations or guidelines. However, most police departments in the United States still do not routinely record interrogations in serious felony investigations. Since 1984, recording of interviews in serious felony investigations has been mandatory in the United Kingdom, and in Northern Ireland since 1999. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and [Page 318]the Republic of Ireland also require that such interviews be recorded. For further reading, see Linkins (2007), New York County Lawyers' Association (n.d.), and Sullivan (2004).