Deception In Law Enforcement

I do believe deception or lying by law enforcement is a justifiable interrogation technique. With that being said, caution should be taken when the decision to utilize such a technique as to prevent violating someone’s rights and prevention of any confessions being ruled coerced by the courts.

In American history, police regularly used brutality to obtain information from a suspect (Skolnick & Leo, 1992). Due to things such as the Wickersham report from the 1920’s, changes in law, and implementation of Miranda rights, this practice has almost completely gone away (Skolnick & Leo, 1992). Today, deception is an invaluable tool to law enforcement to investigate crime and one reason I believe in its merits is that fact that it is allowed by law (Skolnick & Leo, 1992). However, police deception is very complex and using this technique can have both direct and indirect consequences (Skolnick & Leo, 1992). …show more content…
These officers lie and use deception to portray themselves as someone they really are not (Skolnick & Leo, 1992). This is a great example of where I believe in the use of police deception. Another example of where police deception is a great tool was based on the case Illinois v. Perkins. Here, a police officer pretending to be an escaped convict that was caught was able to get Perkins to admit to a murder (Skolnick & Leo, 1992). The court accepted his confession because Perkins was incarcerated for an unrelated crime and was not considered in a custodial situation, so Miranda Rights did not apply (Skolnick & Leo,