A Criminologist's Diary-36

A Criminologist’s Diary-36

Account Criminology and Criminal Ju...

Third Degree Methods and Police

I used to watch American T.V. at Bentonville and I see the police stories. I can see the policemen employing force, torturing people even to the extent of shooting at the suspect. One day I met a policeman and asked him:” Do you torture people?”

He replied:” Yes, in public and never in police custody.”

According to him, using force or beating people in public or torturing people in public’s visibility is justified whereas torturing anyone, including the criminals or suspects, in police custody is an offence under law. O.K., very good advice indeed!

Immediately afterwards, I took You Tube and watched the video pictures therein relating to police interrogation. Believe me or not, I could witness torturing the suspect during interrogation in police custody. I do not know from which country the video has been taken and shown in the You Tube. Any way it is not in India. Moreover, I could see a live telecast of a jail in which the prisoners were most cruelly tortured. There also I have no idea about the country where such a scene has been videographed.

Concurrently with the torture news, I could listen to the torture death of a person in police custody and the difficulties which the C.B.I. faced to take action against two senior police officials of the Indian Police Service . Torturing in police custody is a crime in India from 1860 when the Indian Penal Code came into being. It was due to the recommendation of the Torture Commission instituted by the British in 1855 to inquire into the alleged torture in police custody in the erstwhile Madras State.

I used to teach police officials about James’s Law of Police Interrogation-i.e., the Police Defence Mechanisms(PDMs) cause Suspect’s Defence Mechanisms(SDMs) which in turn cause the PDMs and the process goes on until one of them is made inactive or inoperative. In other words, police interrogation becomes successful if and only if the defence mechanisms found working in the suspects is made inactive or inoperative.[ See Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and refer police interrogation] It is a law which gives a theoretical basis for police interrogation and it helps the police interrogators to apply the law in their scientific and psychological interrogation.

For applying the above law in practical police work, police interrogators need to undergo special training. The police officials should be academically qualified and qualitatively suitable to become professional interrogators. There should be special recruitment to the post of police interrogators and the law should be amended to that effect. Instead, the approach today seems to be to train police officials as Jack of ALL Trades and Master of NONE. Resultantly, they starve on Sundays as the saying goes. Unless and until professional interrogators are recruited and appointed-the law on interrogation is amended-the curse of torturing the suspect in police custody will continue to haunt the investigation works. The crime will be a perpetual persecutor for the police and the killer for the people in police custody. What to do and how to go about?