Book Review: Confessions of Guilt: From Torture to Miranda and Beyond

• Author: John T. Parry
• Published date: 01 June 2013
• DOI: 10.1177/0734016812466105
• Date: 01 June 2013
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

the advantages associated with the suggestive policing measures, the chapter concludes with a dis-

cussion regarding the application of the five principles of mission-based policing.

In Chapter 10, Anticipated Problems, the authors address a number of concerns regarding the use

of mission-based policing. This includes, but is not limited to, the perception of legitimacy, the

potential of increased victimization, and the use of an untested policing model. The answer to these

potential problems is based upon command integrity, mission focus, and neighborhood recovery

measures. The chapter concludes by offering the potential viability of the mission-based policing

model by emphasizing its approach to addressing serious crime that appeals to both conservative and

liberal crime control agendas.

Mission-Based Policing provides a comprehensive and practical approach to incorporating

effective crime-control strategies within police departments. Through the use of military-based

counterinsurgency tactics, the authors have presented a credible argument for the evaluation and

redesign of deployment measures within policing. In addition to strategic and operational insight,

the text offers a unique approach to law enforcement through the use of substantive collaborative

community-based reinvestment measures. From an academic perspective, the text distinctly high-

lights a number of relative research aspects that attempt to bridge the gap between theory and prac-

tical application. Mission-Based Policing is a well-written manuscript that is ideal for policy

makers within the area of policing, graduate students, and those interested in the discipline of

criminal justice.

George C. Thomas III and Richard A. Leo

Confessions of Guilt: From Torture to Miranda and Beyond New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012. x, 317 pp.

$39.95. ISBN: 978-0-19-533-893-5

Reviewed by: John T. Parry, Lewis & Clark Law School, Portland, OR, USA

DOI: 10.1177/0734016812466105

This important and deeply researched book unsettles received wisdom about confessions law and

makes realistic suggestions for better legal doctrine. But Confessions of Guilt is not primarily a

roadmap to legalreform. It is also a clear-eyed and sometimeschastened account of how law responds

to social and cultural forces. Nowhere is this stance more evident—and perhaps, nowhere is it more

controversial—than in the authors’ discussion of coercive interrogation of suspected terrorists.

Confessions of Guilt begins with two interrogations. The first is the examination of a murder

suspect in London in 1832. The examining magistrate carefully warned the suspect that he did not

have to speak and that anything he said could become evidence at trial. The second is the interroga-

tion of Mohamed al-Kahtani by U.S. forces at Guanta´namo Bay Naval Base in 2002. No one told

al-Kahtani that he could remain silent and no one warned him that his statements might be admitted

at a trial. The idea of subsequent legal proceedings was remote at best, and he was subjected to a

range of coercive tactics that almost certainly amounted to torture.

Thomas and Leo do not use these examples to suggest that British law is better than American

law. An important theme of their book is the overlap between U.K. and U.S. law and practice (not

to mention that the United Kingdom in recent decades has also used coercive interrogation tactics in

a similar set of cases). Their point, rather, is that the typical story of a centuries-long progress in

confessions law from torture to constitutional rights is inadequate. Their historical account—which

takes up the first half of the book—emphasizes pendulum swings in British and American

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