It is hard to conceive of what circumstances are necessary to finally get the Chicago Police Department to videotape suspects’ confessions. Despite a 1993 Chicago Police Board recommendation, a 1992 U.S. Justice Department survey showing its advantages and the lessons of 34 big-city police departments, Chicago is still hiding from the camera.
Serious questions surrounding the investigation of the murder of 11-year-old Ryan Harris don’t seem to be enough either. The interrogation of two boys, ages 7 and 8, and the self-incriminating statements police say they made have raised suspicion ever since the police actions came to light. Could children this young understand the adult process of questioning and its protections against coercion? What really went on in a room of five adults and a 2nd grader?
The question is not that young children cannot commit heinous acts, or that most people can’t believe children can commit them. Though many of us do not wish to believe, it would be so much more compelling to have some visual, real-time representation of the statements as they were being made.
But law enforcement here has some “concerns that have to be looked at,” says police spokesman Patrick Camden. Those concerns include which cases among the 250,000 initial arrests each year should involve taping, what parts of an interrogation should be taped, what sort of technology should be used and at what cost, especially in relation to the gains advocates say will come.
William Geller, project manager of the Justice Department study, noted other law enforcement concerns include fear of disruption of current practices, fear that suspects will resist confessing before a camera, and fear that “overbearing but legal” interrogation tactics will have to be eliminated.
To all these complaints, Geller has a simple response: “That’s a dodge.” Police departments from New York City to San Diego have found videotaped statements can be an effective prosecutorial tool, even though they may disagree on when and how such tapings should be used.
“Nobody is saying we’re not going to look at (videotaping) again,” Camden said. But it is not time for police or the state’s attorney’s office to re-examine this issue. There has been enough study, and practice, to decide. It is time to set some guidelines, and buy some cameras and videotape. Before circumstances raise more questions that will not be answered, the time to roll tape is now.
