Legislating Confession Law in Great Britain: A Statutory Approach to Police Interrogations

32 Pages Posted: 18 Apr 2007

See all articles by Mark Berger

Mark Berger

University of Missouri at Kansas City - School of Law

Abstract

The police interrogation process has been a subject of controversy in both Great Britain and the United States. The debate has focused on how to regulate the police and thereby balance the public interest in crime control against the individual interest in freedom from state coercion. In the U.S regulation of the police interrogation process has largely been the result of U.S. Supreme Court interpretations of the self-incrimination privilege of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In contrast, in Great Britain police interrogation controls have been enacted by Parliament in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), supplemented by a Code of Practice for the Detention, Treatment and Questioning of Persons by the Police developed by the British Home Office. This article provides an overview of Great Britain's experience with legislating confession law controls by examining the content and impact of both PACE and the Home Office Interrogation Code of Practice and concludes by suggesting that the statutory and regulatory framework of the British experience can serve as a model for similar reform in the United States.

Reprinted with the permission of The University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform.

Keywords: police interrogation, Miranda, constitutional rights, crime control, coercion, confession, coerced confession, PACE, Police and Criminal Evidence Act, Interrogation Code, waiver of rights, right to counsel, Great Britain

JEL Classification: K14, K40, K42

Suggested Citation

Berger, Mark, Legislating Confession Law in Great Britain: A Statutory Approach to Police Interrogations. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Vol. 24, p. 1, 1990, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=981228

Mark Berger (Contact Author)

University of Missouri at Kansas City - School of Law ( email )

5100 Rockhill Road
Kansas City, MO 64110-2499
United States

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