Imagine this: Your significant other was just shot and killed in your apartment. You were the only other person there at the time, but don’t remember hearing anyone break in. You’re also the only person besides them who knew where the gun you kept was stowed.
Suddenly, you’re the number-one suspect for their murder. You have no alibi; there are no signs of a break-in; your fingerprints are on the gun. The police interview you, and through drawing out information that only the killer could know, you are charged and convicted of first-degree murder, facing 25-to-life in prison for a crime you didn’t commit.
Unfortunately, this same scenario plays out almost daily in the criminal justice system. Police officers wrongly arrest hundreds of people for crimes they did not commit and charge them based on circumstantial evidence and witness interviews they are not qualified to execute. To prevent this, police officers should not be allowed to conduct witness interviews.
When a crime is reported, police officers are the first ones on the scene. They witness firsthand the undisturbed crime scene and the evidence as it is collected. Because of this, it is easy to argue that police officers are in the best position to interview suspects, not the worst – they can “think on their feet” during interviews, asking the right questions as the conversation takes shape based on the firsthand knowledge they have of the case. While this may be true, they are also more likely to manipulate the witness’s memory through their questions. If the interviewer volunteers information about the case, it can lead to false testimony. An astounding number of wrongful convictions, about 20 percent, have been the result of false convictions or false witness statements. If the police were removed from this stage of the prosecution, it is likely that many wrongful convictions could be prevented.
Being in the unique position of being the first to handle a crime scene and the first to have communication with witnesses and suspects, police officers are subject to inherent bias when the interview phase is conducted. It is likely that they have witnessed crimes similar to the one they are currently working on, therefore they already have preconceived notions about the crime and the suspects before they are even able to interview them. In our criminal justice system, where you are innocent until proven guilty, having a police officer with false notions can make an innocent person seem guilty.
Police officers are called upon in court to testify about their interviews and experience with the suspects, so if they believe you are guilty, the jury is likely to sway in their favor. Though there are procedures put in place to prevent bias from presenting itself in interviews, police officers are still largely responsible for the conversation that takes place during the interviews and their reactions to the conversation. Because every case and every officer is different, it is impossible for any set of procedures to be effective in drawing out the needed information without putting the pressure on police officers to not exhibit bias during the interview and their testimony regarding the interview.
If a case that a police officer testified in were to later be retried and overturned as a wrongful conviction, it will come back to look bad on the police. People suddenly believe they cannot trust the police and that they are not good at their jobs. With the possibility of the public completely turning against the police in a society where police relations are already tense, it’d be best to completely remove the possibility of the fault being placed on the police by removing the burden of interviews from them. Despite the current state of police relations in our society, it can be said that most people still do trust the police and rely on them to keep their communities safe. Unfortunately, police officers are often spread too thin in their duties; they are expected to patrol our neighborhoods, be as proactive in preventing crime as possible, quickly be reactive when crimes happen, and swiftly execute justice for these crimes through arrests, interrogations, and prosecution. To become experts at all of these things, they spend on average only 19 weeks in training, of which only five days are devoted to learning the basics of interviews and detecting lies during them. If you were to spend five days learning your career, would you consider yourself an expert? The answer is most likely no, therefore we cannot classify police officers as experts in correctly interpreting interviews.
Not only are police officers barely trained in correct interviewing techniques, but they are proven to not be very good at correctly interpreting witness's answers during the interviews. Studies by leading scholars show that police officers have about a 43 percent, less than chance, accuracy in detecting lies in interviews. Even so, civilians and police officers alike believe that there is no one more qualified to conduct interviews based on the officer’s unique position. What most people don’t know is that there are other groups of professionals who are better at detecting lies in interviews – customs officers, FBI agents, childcare professionals, and even university students prove better at detecting lies than police officers. Instead of relying on police officers to conduct these interviews, it would make testimony in court based on interviews much more reliable if the job is left to those who are specifically trained to detect deception and get the most truthful information out of interviews.
The job of police officers cannot be discounted – they are extremely important in maintaining order in society and are trained professionals to do just that, but nothing more. If they are no longer allowed to conduct witness interviews, the public will be able to maintain trust in them to continuously keep that order. By removing them from the process of interviewing, the justice system will be more effective and make fewer mistakes. But by allowing someone to testify who has a less than chance ability to know the truth, the justice system will never be able to reach that point.
