Summary
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The increasing use of diversion and the growing interest in restorative justice as a means of dealing with youth offending has tended to deflect attention away from the police interview which many young persons must endure before diversionary practices take effect.1 Although there are clearly benefits to diversion, the effect of these practices is that the police interview becomes the only forum for examining the evidence against young suspects who go on to admit their guilt in return for diversionary disposal (Pratt 1986; Evans 1993). Yet, there is a large literature which illustrates that the police interview is not a disinterested search for the truth, in which the police exercise their inquisitorial powers to gather information from the suspect with information flowing in a unidirectional manner from suspect to officer (see, e.g. McConville et al. 1991: 78–79 and Baldwin 1993). Instead, the facts generated during interrogation are the product of a complex process of interaction between the suspect and the officer in which proof is constructed out of the suspect’s own words. (excerpt)
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