Good Cop, Bad Cop is a law enforcement technique to coerce a confession or arrest, but is less effective on experienced suspects. It involves a “bad cop” being aggressive and intimidating, followed by a “good cop” who is gentle and empathetic. The technique is also used rhetorically to gain public support for unpopular opinions or news. However, using violence or coercion is illegal and inadmissible in court.
Good Cop, Bad Cop refers to a law enforcement investigative technique, which could lead to a suspect’s confession or arrest. The term can also be used to describe a rhetorical technique in which two people cooperate or not to deliver unpopular opinions or news and gain the support of the public.
In law enforcement, people with multiple arrests may be familiar with the good cop-bad cop routine, so it may be ineffective with people who have been arrested multiple times. It tends to be most effective on younger, more vulnerable suspects who have never been apprehended. The goal is to coerce a confession, which makes convicting a suspect in the courts much easier.
In this technique, a cop will intentionally play the “bad cop.” He will have a first attempt at questioning a suspect and will be aggressive, negative and attempt to evoke fear in the suspect. He will deny the suspect any favors, such as going to the bathroom or drinking a glass of water. Legally, it cannot deny the suspect access to counsel, so the routine must be devised to strike fear into the suspect without him or her immediately requesting counsel.
Once the bad cop has intimidated the suspect, the good cop has a chance to question him. He or she will question the suspect in a gentle manner, expressing empathy. The police officer can bring food or a drink to the suspect. He or she may also convey that he or she is sorry for the other cop’s actions, or that he or she needs the suspect’s cooperation so the bad cop doesn’t return.
If a suspect is sufficiently terrified of the bad cop, he may respond to the good cop’s “friendly” overtures. Most people are quite familiar with this technique, however, and require a lawyer. Upon this request, a suspect cannot be legally questioned further. Additionally, any statements made after a solicitor’s request may not be admissible in court.
The good cop, the bad cop is often portrayed in TV cop shows, and there are plenty of movie examples as well. It should be noted that many of the examples in these shows are strictly against the law. Forcing a suspect to confess by threatening him with violence, pointing a gun at him or actually being violent is illegal. When such coercion is established, the suspect’s testimony is usually not allowed in any trial.
As a rhetorical technique, this term can refer to the joint effort to bring about a community’s compliance on an unpopular issue. The bad cop, who may be a politician, may first make statements about an issue that is considered extremely unpopular. The good cop then proposes a moderate and compromising solution that seems preferable.
A politician could also use statements by someone from an opposing party to inflame the public before proposing a more modest solution. The “bad” statements in this scenario are often a few quick quotes that are used to represent a total point of view. Consequently, the “good” politician’s elucidation of an issue and mild way of solving it seems to make him or her the better choice, or his or her interpretation of an issue as the smart way to vote.
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