See alsoTherapeutic Jurisprudence; Victim Impact
StatementsFurther Readings
Dignan, J. (2005). Understanding victims and restorative
justice. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.
Erez, E., & Roberts, J. (2007). Victim participation in the
criminal justice system. In R. C. Davis, A. Lurigio, &
S. Herman (Eds.),Victims of crime(2nd ed., chap. 17).
Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Hall, D. (1991). Victim voices in criminal court: The need for
restraint. American Criminal Law Review, 28,233–266.
Joutsen, M. (1994). Victim participation in proceedings
and sentencing in Europe. International Review of
Victimology, 3,57–67.
Orth, U. (2002). Secondary victimization of crime victims by
criminal proceedings. Social Justice Research, 15,313–326.
President’s Task Force on Victims of Crime. (1982). Final
report. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Zedner, L. (2002). Victims. In M. Maguire, R. Morgan, &
R. Reiner (Eds.),The Oxford handbook of criminology.
Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.VIDEOTAPINGCONFESSIONS
The Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to
exonerating the wrongfully convicted by means of
DNA testing, has to date been responsible for freeing
197 people from unjust imprisonment. By examining
the particulars of wrongful conviction cases, the
Innocence Project has also identified several factors
contributing to these miscarriages of justice. One such
factor is false confessions, which can occur when inno-
cent suspects succumb to the intense psychological
pressure that is a ubiquitous feature of today’s police
interrogations in the United States. In fact, false incrim-
inating statements made by suspects during detention
played a role in more than 25% of the wrongful-convic-
tion cases in which the Innocence Project has been
involved. In response to these troubling facts, many sci-
entific, legal, and political leaders have called for
mandatory videotaping of custodial interrogations.
Proponents argue that videotaping interrogations will
discourage the police from using highly coercive tech-
niques to elicit confessions, and the resulting audiovi-
sual record will permit later trial fact finders to more
accurately assess the voluntariness and veracity ofsuspects’ statements. However, policies requiring
videotaping should be carefully considered so as to
minimize the potential drawbacks of the procedure as
suggested by psychological research.Law Enforcement’s Mixed
Reactions to Videotaping
Over the past 25 years, there has been considerable
ambivalence within the law enforcement community
concerning the videotaping of interrogations and con-
fessions. Long before the first DNA exoneration case in
1989, the police in some jurisdictions took the initiative
and began experimenting with the videotape recording
of at least portions of the questioning of detained sus-
pects. For example, by the early 1980s, the district
attorney’s office in one borough of New York City had
access to approximately 3,000 videotaped admission
statements. According to statistics maintained by that
office, videotaping produced an 85% guilty-plea rate
and a nearly 100% conviction rate. In contrast, other
jurisdictions have adamantly resisted the call for
mandatory videotaping of custodial interrogations.
Those in law enforcement opposing the videotaping
movement have argued that the cost of equipment, stor-
age, and transcription of videos is an undue burden for
jurisdictions with limited budgets. Moreover, they fear
that suspects will be hesitant to talk in the presence of
a camera; judges and juries will disapprove of certain
legally permissible interrogation tactics commonly
used (e.g., lying about the amount and kind of evidence
incriminating a suspect), thus rejecting the confession
evidence as unreliable; and requiring videotaping will
impugn the integrity of law enforcement agencies that
have worked diligently to earn a reputation for honesty.
In the past 15 years, two large surveys have been
conducted to assess the extent to which law enforcement
agencies were videotaping at least some interrogations
and/or confessions and their reactions to this procedural
modification. The first was a report to the National
Institute of Justice in 1992 by William Geller, who esti-
mated that approximately one-third of law enforcement
agencies serving populations of 10,000 or more
recorded interrogations, or parts thereof, on some occa-
sions in the late 1980s. Importantly, Geller found that
the police, who had experience with videotaping,
expressed strong support for the practice. As a member
of the San Diego police put it, “Not using video would
be like not using state-of-the-art fingerprint analysis844 ———Videotaping ConfessionsV-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:44 PM Page 844