Re:The Reykjavik Confessions
by tripzilch on Sunday May 18, 2014 @06:03AM
(#7762635)
That's the weirdest thing about US police series.
When I was younger, I never really believed that sort of thing actually happens for real, just thought it was an over-used fictional "cleverness" trope. I mean it's so obvious this is going to lead to abuse and false confessions if actually used for real-life confessions, I figured it had to, because in a TV-series you can assume that the police are the smart/good guys so they could safely use this clever (if somewhat unfair) trick to get the (obvious) bad guys.
As I got older, and perhaps as the themes in TV series got a little more complex, I started wondering sometimes, how are these even the good guys? For all they know they are now convicting an innocent man or woman, by pressuring them into confessing to a crime with the only leverage being "an offer they can't refuse" (a much larger sentence).
When I was younger, I never really believed that sort of thing actually happens for real, just thought it was an over-used fictional "cleverness" trope. I mean it's so obvious this is going to lead to abuse and false confessions if actually used for real-life confessions, I figured it had to, because in a TV-series you can assume that the police are the smart/good guys so they could safely use this clever (if somewhat unfair) trick to get the (obvious) bad guys.
As I got older, and perhaps as the themes in TV series got a little more complex, I started wondering sometimes, how are these even the good guys? For all they know they are now convicting an innocent man or woman, by pressuring them into confessing to a crime with the only leverage being "an offer they can't refuse" (a much larger sentence).