The Suspect's Statement
Talk and Text in the Criminal Process

Explores how suspect statements are elicited in police interrogations, written down and transformed into a document that is cited in court.

Martha Komter (Author)

9781107698772, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 7 October 2021

219 pages, 2 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.2 cm, 0.302 kg

'In this rigorous book, Komter offers a detailed investigation of entextualisation. Any researcher working on how discourse changes as it is decentered and recentered across contexts will profit from including The suspect's statement in her or his theoretical framework… ' Amanda Diniz Vallada, Language in Society

What suspects tell the police may become a crucial piece of evidence when the case comes to court. But what happens to 'the suspect's statement' when it is written down by the police? Based on a unique set of data from over fifteen years' worth of research, Martha Komter examines the trajectory of the suspect's statement from the police interrogation through to the trial. She shows how the suspect's statement is elicited and written down in the police report, how this police report both represents and differs from the original talk in the interrogation, and how it is quoted and referred to in court. The analyses cover interactions in multiple settings, with documents that link one interaction to the next, providing insights into the interactional and documentary foundations of the criminal process and, more generally, into the construction, character and uses of documents in institutional settings.

1. Introduction
2. The police interrogation: the talk, the typing and the text
3. The police report: the document, the text and the talk
4. The trial: documents in action
5. The career of a suspect's statement
6. Conclusion and discussion.

Subject Areas: Police law & police procedures [LNFX5], Criminal law & procedure [LNF], Courts & procedure [LNAA], Criminal investigation & detection [JKVF], Crime & criminology [JKV], Sociolinguistics [CFB]