Homework Question on Police Behavior
- Discuss the difference between police pressure and police coercion in the interrogation setting.
- What is the balance law enforcement is trying to achieve with the attitude that pressure is permissible – short of coercion?
- Use the following book as one of the sourses Joel Samaha, Criminal Procedure, (8th ed. 2012)
Homework Answer on Police Behavior
When police have a reason or a belief that someone has committed a crime, they are supposed to obtain a warrant of arrest unless stipulated otherwise in the law and also depending on the crime that a person has committed. These circumstances of obtaining a warrant should be possible when the arresting authority has belief that the suspect may not destroy the evidence.
Police are allowed to interrogate a suspect. However, police are supposed to read rights to the arrested person normally called the Miranda rights. This right s is read to the person during questioning. It should be noted that police are not under any obligation to read Miranda rights to the person during arrest. The law allows police to interrogate an arrested person. It should be noted that when incriminating evidence is provided by the subject, it makes works much easier for them. There is no obligation however on the subjects to provide such incriminating evidence as read for them in Miranda rights (Samaha 2012).
The suspect can chose not to respond to some questions fronted by the police doing the interrogations. It is for this reason that police have developed ingenious methods of doing interrogation to suspects that are so sophisticated enough to illicit the information they want. The police officers can persuade the suspect to give information; the police can also use manipulative techniques or even deceive the subject just to get him to admit to the crime.