Police Deception

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Ever since we were little the idea that lying is bad has been repeatedly shoved into our heads. From a very young age, we have all been taught that lying is something that you should never do, and if you do partake in a lie there will be severe consequences to follow. While lying to benefit yourself is still a bad thing, what about lying to help other people? What if your friend is in danger and you lie to help get them to safety? These kinds of questions are making people question if all types of lying are really that bad. Police officers have been known to lie to get information on or from a suspect. They tend to use forms of deception to get this information. The deception usually involves the police lying to the suspect. But if everyone …show more content…

Some people say that this is not a moral thing to do, and the evidence the police obtain from acts of deception should not be allowed to be used in court. But this should not be the case. If a person is not guilty then they would not have anything to confess to in the first place, regardless of what the police do during the interrogation. For example, in the case article, a woman was asked to write down something that she had previously said in the interrogation. After she does this the officer tells her that there is powder on the pen that detects gunpowder from a person’s hand. The officer then asks the women if she was okay with the technician looking at the pen. She said yes and once the technician looked at the pen he lied and told the women that the powder had detected gun residue, even though there was nothing on the pen in the first place. This was done to make it seem like the police had evidence on the women for the crime, even though they did not. She ended up confessing to the crime once she believed that the police could use this “evidence” to incriminate her for the crime. If the police could not have done this deception, they may never have found evidence for the crime. The girl could have just pleaded the fifth and if the police had nothing on her, they would have had to let her go. This is just one example of how police deception is a really effective way of getting evidence on a crime. Even though the officers are lying about having evidence, it is for a greater cause. If the girl had really not done anything wrong, she should not have been afraid when the technician said that the pen tested positive for the residue. She would have just told them that that was impossible because she was not guilty and not involved in the crime what so ever. But some people may say that deception should not be used because it messes with people’s heads. A person may plead guilty

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