Initiating, Pausing, Resuming, and Ending Police Questioning: Due Process as Interactional Norms in an Australian Police Interrogation Room1

摘要

Literature on the questioning norms that take place in police interrogation rooms is often associated with police misconducts, abuse of power, inefficiency, and unaccountability amongst others. Numerous studies coupled by civil litigations and court rulings have detailed the ways law enforcers have denied suspects to lawyers, cajoling suspects to talk with threats or/and promises, and in some cases, inflicting physical and psychological violence to elicit confessions and incriminating evidences from suspects. Apart from challenging this stereotype, this article uses data derived from the questioning an Australian police officer conducted with a terrorist accomplice suspect in 2007 to analyse the patterns of due process at (i) the start of questioning sessions, (ii) when the investigator pauses and recommences the questioning, (iii) and at the end of questioning. The Australian police’s methods in questioning is deemed to be one of the most effective and advanced ways in criminal procedure in the police interrogation room as it ensures that the questioning officer is accountable at all time through the use of audio visual recordings.