Deception by the Investigating Officer - Essay Example

Deception by the Investigating Officer In the criminal justice system, legal officers perform various tasks to ensure that there is maintenance of law and order and criminals receive the punishment that they deserve. In this regard, investigating officers, charged with the responsibility of investigating suspects through interrogation and other means, have a very critical role to play in revealing the truth. In their pursuit of disclosing the truth, the criminal justice allows these officers to apply deception in investigative, interrogative and testimonial processes in order to disclose the truth. However, there are serious ethical issues surrounding this aspect of deception. As a result, there is often a conflict between the ethical standards of the society and implementation of laws. This paper will analyze the concept of deception as applied by investigating officers, detection of deception, the ethical issues surrounding this deception as well as the reasons for and against application of this form of deception. Introduction The police-induced confessions have influential and moving consequences on the nature of cases and on the entire criminal justice system making them a strong prosecutorial weapon. Definitely, the interrogations by modern police are at times so powerful that they have draw out coerced compliant and identify false confessions from innocent people. According to researchers, the basis of interrogation is the presumption of guilt making the process too persuasive. This assumption sets in motion numerous behavioral and cognitive affirmation biases (Meissner & Kassin, 2002). There are three phases of the detecting process including interrogation, testimony, and investigation. It is evident that the acceptability of deception differs conversely with the stage of the criminal process in case there is placing of these three phases within the structure of a broad portrait of the moral cognition of the police officer. Although deception is acceptable at the investigation stage, it is less acceptable during interrogation and least acceptable in the courtroom (Skolnick, 1982). Features of deception by investigating officers In order to permit lawyers to use deceptive investigations, there has been execution of ethical standards of several jurisdictions. However, the adjustments could differ from nation to nation. Occasionally, there could be exemption of government lawyers from the deceit rules in case they are undertaking secret investigations. This is because undercover investigations normally include the making of material false statements of fact. While undertaking undercover investigations, investigators and informants through police cooperation make false statements of fact to hide their intentions and identities. Additionally, the investigators and informants could make false statements regarding such things like their former criminal history and connections with criminals in order to establish credibility (McMunigal, 2011). There is a widely accepted belief known as utilitarian calculus, which claims that truth will cause a greater evil than the deception and that individual, including police officers, find themselves in these circumstances regularly. Among the areas that involve deception in law enforcement are informants, the use of wiretaps, undercover operations, and stings. The main deceptive practices involving lying to people normally occur in criminal activity (Ciske, 2009). There is amendment of the ethical rules in some nations to permit investigative deceit, for example, letting investigative deceit through modification of a comment to their ethical rules. However, there is creation of other jurisdictions concerning an investigative deceit excluding the interpretation of the present rules by an ethics committee or a court (McMunigal, 2011). There are several reasons why there could be testimonial deception. Among the reasons, are the investigator concealing criminal behaviors or covering up investigative incompetence. However, the desire to acquire the conviction of those who are morally or factually guilty and avoid obvious deficiencies in the criminal justice system makes up a large number of cases. Since the main duty of police officers is to manage factual guilt but not legal culpability, it is frustrating for an officer to lose a case due to technicality or unreasonable doubt on a part of the judges. There is a strong belief in the officers that they have satisfactorily done their job and desire an appropriate conclusion in order to secure the society from a predator and a likely liar (Ciske, 2009). Reasons for and against deception Skolnick (1982) indicates that there are many reasons that make an investigating officer to lie. One of them is that lying is their own way of dealing with the legal impediments either to compensate his views against the unfair court judgments or to guard fellow officers. Additionally, the officer’s opinion about the system, believes it is cynical, to suppresses truth in favor of the criminal. Moreover, there is a jurisdiction that an officer can practice deceit in the investigative stage since he is not certain whether the criminal is guilty. However, it prohibits lying in the testimonial stage because he is sure the guilt of the accused. Consequently, the officer focuses on the short-term disutility of the act of suppressing evidence rather than the long-term utility of due process of law for shielding and developing the dignity of the accused citizen. Investigative deception is also very vital in the society as it helps in revealing the hidden truth and disclosing the falsehood of the issue at hand. In this regard, the undercover officer, investigating a certain case, lies about his or her identity so that he can uncover the truth of the case. In this case, the concerned officer lies so that he can get the truth. Although this might sound unethical, it is beneficial since the investigating officer might succeed in getting the truth that he otherwise could not have got, if he did not lie. An investigating agent, who deceives concerning his identity, may disclose various identities, prospective strategies, as well as earlier offenses of members of a group dealing with drug trafficking, sex trafficking, or terror campaign. Deception may also help police and other investigative officers to uncover corruption dealings in public officers (McMunigal, 2011). Police and other investigating officers frequently require using lies to reveal the truth since criminal activity tends to be secret. In most cases, criminals commit crimes in a hidden manner since committing of crimes naturally occurs secretly. The reason why crimes occur secretly is that their detection leads to likely prosecution as well as social denunciation. Besides having an intention to lie, those who commit offenses frequently occur as having a poor character for authenticity, an observation mirrored in evidentiary regulations concerning accusation. Numerous witnesses to offenses, for instance drug peddling and planned offenses, are likely to have influential impetus to lie due to fear of repercussion or vengeance. In this case, deception is frequently essential to make such individuals to disclose the truth (McMunigal, 2011). Grant (2010) indicates that deception by investigating officers in the criminal justice system often have serious ethical considerations. There is always a conflict between the ethical codes of the society and the enforcement of laws. In the public domain, codes of ethics have become very multifaceted. In addition, the rules and regulations governing the society changes as the society changes. Due to this transformation, the society expects the law enforcement officers, especially the investigating officers to perform their duties without degrading the moral standards of the society. Moreover, citizens wait for law enforcement officials to function in a professional and proficient way without expressing individual observations and sentiments. To achieve this, law enforcement officers must have a stringent and steadfast observance of code of ethics and a code of conduct. There are other reasons that clearly show that deception with the aim of revealing the truth is not ethical. In this case, it is evident that the most important aspect of the legal system is justice. It is also true that the legal system must adhere strictly to honesty for justice to prevail in the legal system. In this regard, deception by investigating officers might lead to the punishment of an innocent person, in which justice does not prevail. Often, the legal system requires that witnesses be honest when providing their evidence. In the same sense, the investigating officials should portray the highest caliber of honesty encrypted in the ethical and moral codes of the society. Conversely, is these officers generates false evidence or lie concerning their identity, they could make an innocent person pay for crimes he or she did not commit. In such a case, justice does not prevail and the ends do not justify the means. Moreover, they loosen the requisite of honest and respectable behavior; they loosen the development of the justice system from the start, and as a result corrupt the whole system (Realpolice.net, 2004). Law enforcement officials, especially investigating officers are professionals, who work in a skilled professional group whose major concern comprises offering a service that profits the public. Since law enforcement is a career, ethics and moral behavior play a significant role. Citizens often have several standards and norms that they anticipate all law enforcement officials to practice. The law enforcement system of principles in addition to the police code of conduct characterizes the foundation for moral behavior in law enforcement. Nevertheless, these codes merely comprise words. For them to be successful, law enforcement officers and their leaders must deem them as the bible for law enforcement (Grant, 2010). Detecting deception Often, the law but not at all times defend police deception. For instance, the law allows the investigating officer to present as a customer or vendor of vice, but does not permit the police officer to make use of certain ruses to achieve entrance without a search warrant, or to acquire a search warrant with a bogus affirmation. The daily routine order of police allows, and at times insists, deception of prosecutors, defense attorneys, defendants and courts, but hardly ever, if ever, permits for deception of fellow police officers. Therefore, Police work in a harsh, but frequently painfully incongruous, ethical order, which stipulates certain forms of fidelities and persists upon other sorts of betrayals (Skolnick, 1982). Detecting deception is a very tricky and complex task that requires a lot of sacrifice. For instance, before the interrogation by the investigating officers, the investigating officer can detect whether the suspect is deceiving or not by use of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies. During this time, the investigating officer, asks the suspect various questions without confrontation regarding about his or her understanding, whereabouts, and probable interest in the offense. In addition, many deem that they can learn to make these primary judgments at high levels of precision by examining diverse features of the suspect’s verbal and nonverbal behavior (Meissner & Kassin, 2002). Conclusion The use of deception by investigating officer in the criminal justice system is subject to heated debate. Generally, the criminal justice system allows investigating officers to practice deception while interrogating suspects. There are those who believe that although this may help in revealing the truth, it corrodes the codes of ethics of the society. This implies that there is a conflict between the codes of ethics of the society and the enforcement of laws. Investigating officers deem deception as very important in disclosing vital information concerning operations of suspected criminals. Although detecting deception is a very complex function, the use of non-verbal and verbal communication helps in detecting forms of deception. References Ciske, M. (2009). The Ethics of Police Deception. Retrieved from Grant, J.K. (2010). Ethics and law enforcement. Retrieved from McMunigal, K.C. (2011). Investigative Deceit. Retrieved from Meissner, C.A. & Kassin, S.M. (2002). Investigator Bias in Judgments of Truth and Deception. Law and Human Behavior, 26, 5, 469-480. Realpolice.net. (2004). Why is honesty so important in Law Enforcement? Retrieved from Skolnick, J.H. (1982). Deception by Police. 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