SpaceChimera t1_j9ckmqi wrote on February 20, 2023 at 10:51 PM

Police have a long history of torture in this country. If you've ever heard the phrase "give em the 3rd degree" that's where the phrase comes from. You'd have degrees of interrogation with the 3rd being just literally torture for a confession. This was fully legal until 1940 and then continued with prosecutors and judges looking the other way for decades longer. Look up John Burge in Chicago PD to see how tolerated it was. Burge worked at CPD until the 90s and tortured hundreds of black men into giving confessions. On his desk in the police commanders office he kept his "N****r box" for everyone to see. Nobody said shit for decades and tried to cover it up once it came to light. Current CPD and FOP leadership has defended Burge on numerous occasions.

Nowadays police aren't supposed to beat you. They developed things like the Reid technique to essentially mentally abuse you into confessing. You can't physically torture anyone but you can lock them in interrogation for days while repeatedly questioning and leading them to what you want to hear - all the while blatantly lying to you about the evidence, your rights, etc

reverendsteveii t1_j9k7rwk wrote on February 22, 2023 at 4:19 PM

Fun fact about the Reid technique: it came into prominence after Reid used it to get Darrel Parker to confess to his wife's murder. That confession was later determined to be false and Parker was paid $500,000 by the state of Nebraska for wrongful conviction.

Which is to say that the cops always knew it was bullshit that's just as likely to get a false confession as a real one, but their job is to arrest people for crimes regardless of whether those people are actually guilty.