Abstract
This chapter examines the power of the police to question suspects, both in theory and in practice. It discusses the expanding powers of the police to interrogate, reflecting the drift from due process to crime control; the multiple aims of police interviews; the dwindling away of the right to silence, for example as a result of the introduction of adverse inferences and the ‘sidelining’ of legal advice; the (inadequate) regulation of interrogation, for example, through trial remedies founded on interviews being ‘unfair’ or ‘oppressive’ ; traditional police interview tactics; the development of investigative interviewing, based on the PEACE model; why the innocent confess and the role of coercion and suggestibility in this; and the need for a corroboration rule.
