Police Interrogations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited in threads on coerced confessions and plea bargains, and praised for well-researched coverage.
What it is
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on police interrogation tactics and how they can lead innocent people to give false confessions.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2022 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Recommends soraminazuki · 2023-05 · on “Japanese police make first YouTuber arrest for uploading video game gameplay”
His show does proper research and points to numerous actual cases of harm before making a claim. Detaining suspects for long periods of time and forcing confessions is a topic that comes up repeatedly, each time with different examples. I don't know how anyone can say with a straight face that this isn't anything of substance. [this video]
Cites soraminazuki · 2022-06 · on “Japan passes revised penal code with harsher punishment for cyberbullying”
Forced confessions are unfortunately not unique to Japan [1]. Police will behave like that when you reward them based on the number of convictions and don't hold them accountable for screwing over innocent people. Still sucks, though. [1]: [this video]
Cites m000 · 2023-02 · on “The vast majority of criminal cases end in plea bargains, a new report finds”
Is this news at this point? Last year there was a whole episode of Last Week Tonight with main subject "Police interrogations and false confession" [1] documenting exactly how innocent people are coerced into guilty pleas. [1] [this video]
Cites moffkalast · 2023-06 · on “People Can Be Convinced They Committed a Crime That Never Happened”
Or you know, it being the standard work process for police these days apparently, so they can pat themselves on the back and go home early: [this video]