Document Type
Journal Article
Faculty
Faculty of Business and Law
School
School of Law and Justice / Centre for Innovative Practice
RAS ID
14190
Abstract
Justice goes some way to being served when statements from police interviews with suspects are admissible as evidence in court. Admissible evidence confirms that the police have worked within legal constraints and satisfied universal ethical principles that appear in the police code of conduct. Conversely, when police behave improperly and an accused person walks free, police authorities have needed to placate an outraged public by promising reforms. This article explores sections of Arthurs’ case to illustrate differences between legal and illegal police conduct when interviewing a murder suspect. Parts of the interview were admissible as legal evidence; the majority was not. This article then considers the practical relevance of ethical constraints formalized as universal moral principles in the police code of conduct. It suggests that Aristotle’s virtue ethics may be a more appropriate ethical response than referring to abstract moral principles in analysing police/suspect interviews. The article concludes by calling for police to include virtue ethics as part of conversation management strategies when analysing police/suspect interviews.
DOI
10.1093/police/pas016
Access Rights
free_to_read
Comments
This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in a journal of policy and practice following peer review. The version of record: Larsen, A. , & Crowley, M. G. (2012). Virtue Ethics: Analysing emotions in a police interview with a crime suspect. Policing: a journal of policy and practice, 6(3), 291-300. Available here