Yikes. I understand the positive spin is the police care about the wellbeing of at-risk people with these visits. But wouldn't it also be true that anything and everything the police observe and believe as a result of such a visit could also be used against the resident or others in the home?
Summarizing:
1. There is no way it can help.
2. If your client is guilty (or even innocent), they might admit guilt with nothing in return.
3. If your client is innocent, they can still make some small mistake or tiny mistruth that can be used to convict by seeding doubt.
4. If your client is innocent, and does not make any small mistake or tiny mistruth, what is said can still be used in court to convict.
5. If your client is innocent, and tells the police absolutely nothing incriminating at all, the police can still mis-remember the conversation and result in a conviction.
6. If your client is innocent, and tells the police absolutely nothing incriminating at all, and the clients statements are videotaped so it cannot be mischaracterized, the police can still augment the conversation from their personal knowledge and result in a conviction.
There's more, it goes on and on and on. Don't talk to police if you are being questioned about something, whether you did it or not.
I of course refused to give any kind of statement under video and instead just spoke privately with an officer and gave minimal details. However I fear that others less inclined about their rights or why they wanted to record would be screwing themselves.
Essentially I had a false report made against me and there was no evidence. If I said anything incriminating in a video statement by accident I would have just made evidence for them. No one advised me of this. It felt like I should have brought a lawyer with me.
Edit: This was in an Ontario based police department.
Realize too that a great many officers now don body cameras. If you aren't willing to say it on video, do not say it. No matter what they tell you, police officers are not capable of private conversations. Every conversation with a cop is a conversation between a person and a government. It might be recorded. The cop can take notes. They cop can get back to their car and relate the conversation to a camera, creating very powerful evidence. There is no concept of privacy when talking to police.
The section on consenting to searches was the most interesting. E.g. you could consent to a search of your home thinking "I've done nothing wrong so come on in" only to find out someone (relative, maintenance person etc) left something illegal in your home without your knowledge.
How does the rule about not talking to police work? What about when police are canvassing the neighborhood and they are knocking on every door? Are you supposed to talk then? What about when you have info of a crime? What about when you want to report a crime? Any of these situations is potentially a way for police to twist your words.
The important bit is "if the police are asking questions with any level of suspicion at all". Every person has to do their own personal risk assessment, and maybe you don't always know whether you're under suspicion, but if the police want to talk to you and you have any reason whatsoever to think that you're under suspicion, you're rolling the dice by agreeing to talk to them without a lawyer.
In Europe in particular, police officers are not such an enemy.
Also, in UK, refusing to talk to police at first contact can be used against you, for example it will be more difficult later to introduce exculpatory evidence that you were supposed to know of at the time you refused to speak.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_silence_in_England_an...
If you have read any of the anonymous blogs by those on the Job, they almost always tell you to either keep your mouth shut or say as little as possible ─ this was the wisdom imparted by 'Nightjack' before he got outed and had to delete his blog, subsequently going on to win accolades and the Orwell Prize.[1]
https://web.archive.org/web/20090426201221/http://nightjack....
Everywhere in the world the police are your enemy. They exist as the manifestation of a state's domestic violence.
But in this scenario the police are unprompted at your door and their first ask is to come into your house.
If the police just want to talk to you because they're concerned about you personally they'll just ask to talk to you in a place they wouldn't otherwise need a search warrant signed by a judge to enter.
The police have immense power, you do not.
What do you have to gain from interacting with the police? Now, compare this to what you stand to lose by interacting with the police.
The rule is simple: don't interact with the police. They are not your friends, anything you do or say can and will be used against you at a whim.
Do not romanticize other countries, please.
Nope. I can't agree with this, as much as I wish I could. It's an easy fallacy to think the U.S. is the exception when it comes to power mad, duplicitous and hostile bullies in the police force since they're the ones getting the bulk of the media coverage. We have them in Canada, too. Yes, they're fewer in numbers, but that's not to say we don't have them. It's easy to assume other countries or cultures are innocent of a problem just because they have a lower, or perhaps invisible, prevalence of that problem.
Source: I'm a Canadian (who used to think exactly this way) with family members in the emergency services, including one estranged, asshole bully of a cop who'd happily harass someone and construct a charge if they looked at him the wrong way.
Your local mafia clan are also nice people as long as you play by their rules (you can study organized crime in favelas where it is an ordering element similar to police).
This is a massive problem in itself. The police should be your friend. When it's not, that in itself is a massive condemnation of the way the police functions.
As a Canadian, I disagree with this sentiment.
The part where you're a drug addict and they've come to see if you want to go to rehab is a big potential upside.
"The police are not your friends"
Yes, the absolutely are. Despite the potential downsides.
I live in a shifty neighbourhood and visibly recognize the police staffers (I see them often, they come into the cafe etc.), there's a clinic across the street from me that deals with 'all kinds' ... in my view, a lot of policing is basically social work. That said I live in Canada.
My rule of thumb built up over years of annoyance & bullshit is: if you don't know who it is, or aren't expecting anything, ignore it; 99.9% of the time someone unexpected/unknown on the phone or at your door are just going to be wasting your time and attention. (trying to sell you something/con you/religious recruitment/generally be weird/mad etc)
Random person knocking at the door at 1am results in me answering the door with one of the USSR's most prolific exports within arms reach in case anybody needs the ol' East Houston treatment. They might be having an emergency and need help but it's also wise to be conscious of who's knocking. If there's three dudes on my porch and a fourth sitting in a running car then I'll ask them what they heck they want without opening the door.
I don't answer the door for anyone in a uniform unless I'm expecting them. If the government needs to tell me something or interact with me in any legitimate capacity they'll send a letter.
My friend decided to move there. Maybe you should too. You do gain a certain peace of mind from being able to open your door without risk or trouble.
Wtf? Yes of course I do. Do you not have a doorbell?
I always answer the door and the phone.
Someone selling is remarkably rare, JW show up trying to sell religion every couple of years - we try and scare them off claiming devout satanism or spaghetti based religion. :)
That's about it. Maybe police if some had an accident, or something in the local area happened.
If you live in an area that regularly has people literally trying to con you door to door, that's an issue with where you live. It's not normal for many people.
I also pick up the phone. 99% of the time it's a recruiter. Less enthusiastic about those odds, but it's occasionally useful.
It's something that I also communicate to my friends (although I would never not open the door for them, for obvious reasons). My reasoning is kind of like "I've been fulfilling my societal duties all week goddammit, if I want to be alone in my cave for a few hours just leave me be!"
Agree with the program or not, this is not spam.
I certainly wouldn't want that kind of visit from police officers whose primary concern is to find a reason to arrest or shoot you, but if police is honestly trying to help and prevent problems, it's an entirely different matter.
Police culture, policy and accountability matters a lot in a case like this.
I'm torn on the article. The Canadian government isn't China and we have had quite a few pretty public cases here in Germany where lack of inter-agency coordination led to serious harm in the context of our CPS equivalent. OTOH, at least from that article, this program doesn't seem to get the oversight required for such a task.
At any rate, the lack of transparency and contractually forbidding people from talking about the program is a weird and all to common move these days.