Interrogation is a widely controversial issue in American criminal justice. From black sites to the room in which people are questioned, the issue is multi-faceted in every sense of the word. Because it is such a complex issue and a complex process for all involved, wrongful convictions and coerced confessions are extremely common.

One might think that the U.S. Constitution and Miranda Warnings, among other things, would protect someone from making a wrongful confession or testifying against themself. However, law enforcement has found ways and “loopholes” to go around these restrictions, or worse, just ignore them.

Courts often focus on coercion that is not outright and obvious when conducting an interrogation. This doesn’t mean people are receiving enhanced interrogation techniques all across America, but that they are not respected and treated justly.

For example, long interrogation sessions and multiple, tiring sessions back to back with short breaks are not uncommon despite that it seems as though these should be illegal.

It’s hard to understand how someone who truly is innocent would incriminate themselves, but under the right conditions, we all would. When police are allowed to lie to a certain blurry extent, it can evoke a strong level of stress in most that can push them to just say anything to get out of the situation.

The same goes for threats made by the police, the “Good-Cop, Bad-Cop,” technique, having the prisoner be isolated, and other techniques that are easy to fall victim to when being interrogated. To protect one’s family, escape the situation, or simply because they were tricked into saying the wrong thing, coerced confessions are no rarity.

In Florida, 5 people were exonerated after confessing to murder. 81% of people with mental illness or disabilities falsely confessed to homicide when accused, with 27% of people without disabilities doing the same for the same accusation.

The data — the amount of people exonerated after having confessed to a crime — shows how urgent and pressing this issue is. The amount of years and lives lost to false confessions has been estimated, but is probably even larger than it’s thought to be.

There are ways to combat this, but how effective they are is still up for debate. Videotaping interrogations to detect where a coerced confession may have been produced would be helpful in identifying what testimony should be disregarded, but this is only impactful when interrogation is examined prior to the juries receiving information from said interrogation.

It’s almost impossible to completely disregard a piece of information solely because someone tells us to — if anything, it makes us think more about it. Think of the movie Inception, where Arthur asks Saito to not think about elephants, yet all he can think of is elephants. If the jury has already seen it, they’re most likely going to consider it.

Training people and police on what to say during interrogations and how to act could be more effective. Making sure that police understand where they cross the line that is coercion is essential to making sure law enforcement do not abuse their power. Likewise, making sure those being interrogated understand their situation and the weight of their words is equally as important in making sure they don’t give up too much of their power.

Even though this issue is nuanced and difficult to solve due to seemingly ineffective solutions, we have to start somewhere and begin the journey towards just interrogations and rightful confessions.