Sorry about that faux pax Metpol...you confused me when you put your question through on my posting. Which is really easy to do these days. :D :D :D :D

My personal opinion is that interrogation methods vary greatly with the region and type of investigation going on. Education, experience, and demographics also play a part in the system. There are restrictions placed on behavior of police by their superiors, customs, policies, regulations, mandates, plus state & federal laws. The one thing that is universal is that the police can lie to a suspect to get him/her to talk.
TV shows got that one down pat. My favorites are "Law & Order" and "Homicide: Life on the Streets". "NYPD BLUE" is finally getting into more legal & realistic tactics. No, beating a suspect into a confession is NOT realistic....if you want it to hold up in court.

From my experience & knowledge, my suggestion to anyone taken into custody/arrested in the US should immediately request a lawyer and not speak to the police no matter what they say. Sure, they'll make that person out to look guilty by "not being open or up front" ---but they are looking for conclusion of the matter and not an individual's best interest. The lawyer, despite how good or how bad, that's his/her's primary job. Believe me, the police won't be "honest or up front" to you either.

Your words & explanations to the police can & will be used against you. It's kind of like this: of all of the millions of people in the country, "you" were singled out for attention and there must be a reason why...ergo, you must be guilty of something.

The one thing to remember, that despite news reports, crime levels in the US have considerably declined in recent years. No one knows exactly why... obviously more than one reason plays a part in this.
toodles

Thanks for that, just wanted someones opinion that lived in the us, and may have seen it first hand:D forgot to say the documentaries i like cops, wild police chases, etc.

I think Nb may be correct. My neighbour who was in the army was telling me some years ago about army dogs that he referred to as 'war dogs'. These dogs were trained to attack on sight and were not worked closely with a handler but loosed into areas where personnel was prohibited to protect whatever!
Maybe some military folk can be more specific.

I remember seeing a peiece on the news about such unsocialised untrained Gurds having to be destroyed when the Berlin wall came down. They had been used betwwen the fencing and were thought to be unable to be rehabilitated.

I would imagine such methoids of training (more like lack of) are used where no-one can be bothered with the resources in manpower and money to train them, If human life is cheap, canine life even more so!

Also I would imagine a ferocious indiscriminate uncontrolled beastie like this would put more fear into the people t6hat are being guarded against!!

Yes I can believe that. I watched a documentary on military dogs and their training (not all that long ago) where they said that dogs sent abroad 'did not come home' when the troops were pulled out etc... and they are not rehomed as they have been trained to bite. This would exclude the European countries now under the pets passports thing.

Was it about the dogs in vietnam, that was really sad, it had me in tears, and they had to put quite a few down and the rest were left to the vietnamese army, the handlers who were all in tears talking about it, said that was the first time they had seen these dogs cower when they were handed over to them, i could not begin to imagine how hard that must have been to leave your dog behind, i could not have done that.

No it was the British Army and it was the Falklands or somewhere. I really can't remember where but got the impression that it was any of these countries. It wasn't very impressive.

If you ever see a program called war dogs, watch it, it was on sky, its bound to be repeated on animal planet some time.

I'll keep an eye out and get someone with Sky to tape it for me

I saw that too Metpol Fan- I felt so sorry for the dogs and handlers- all the handlers had a heroic story to tell of what the dog did for them- the handlers were all so gutted:(

Stacey x x x

A police dog is trained to "Detain" a suspect. The word hold or bite isn't the issue. If the suspect gives up prior to the dog’s arrival, the dog will "Detain" them by barking at them until the officer arrives. If the suspect keeps running the dog will "Detain" them by taking hold of the right arm with their mouth and detaining them until the officer arrives.

When a dog is being trained to chase and detain we utilise the dogs natural Prey Drive. The natural ability and desire to chase and capture prey. When a wild animal catches its prey, it holds on to it using sufficient pressure to ensure that it can't escape. Having caught it, the next step is to kill it (the shake) and then to carry it away.

How much jaw or bite pressure needed to stop the prey escaping will depend on the attitude of the prey and the predator’s previous experiences. If the prey animal has experienced pain and injury from a previous encounter due to holding on too lightly, or has allowed previous prey to escape (and therefore gone hungry) it will apply more pressure the next time to ensure that the same doesn't happen again, even if in that case it isn't necessary.

A police dog is no different. The pressure applied to the arm or other body part if the arm is not available will depend on the dogs natural level of prey drive, its previous experiences and how much the prey is struggling whilst trying to escape. No two dogs or two incidents are ever the same, even though the training is standardised.

Because teeth are hard and flesh is soft, there is bound to be injury if the dog is holding on tight. It has nothing to do with how gentle a dog CAN be, my police dog could carry an egg without breaking it, but put 148 stitches in someone one night, so that isn't the point. Its about doing what is required to get the job done, and in the vast majority of cases, criminals are trying to escape to avoid going to prison, and so do not make it easy. They kick, punch, stab and sometimes shoot at both dogs and officers, and there is often very little time to ask them how they intend to behave, so we come back to previous experience motivating reaction. The safest way is to go in hard and get the job done right first time.

In short, police dogs are trained to bite, but there is a difference between biting hard to detain someone, and being out of control and causing injury to innocent people.

The Sussex incident from my point of view was a dog doing its job, under difficult circumstances and resulting in a bite to the side of the head, maybe because the criminal was fighting the dog on the ground, or he slipped as the dog launched itself to detain him.

Regards

Steve Dean
Police Dog Instructor
Metropolitan Police UK

Thanks very much for the explanation Steve.

I don’t think most people on this board have anything but admiration for the work done by these dogs (and their handlers) in a very difficult climate. Too often these days no thought is given to the roll these dogs play while, (To me anyway) too much thought is given to the "Poor" criminal! As the saying goes, "Don't do the crime if you are not prepared to pay the price!"

Regards, John

i agree with you john, if you didnt get yourself into a position needing a policeman or dog ,youd be ok, if you do then you deserve whatever you get, --theyre dogs after all,--nice to have it explained properly by steve though, , puts it all straight ,-thanks steve!

Hello steve, so you have found the champdogs web site, took you long enough, or could you not resist the subject, from an ex puppy staff person Diane.

Hi Di

Good to hear from you. I wondered who on earth could be a Metpol fan!!

Hope the new job is going well.

See you soon

Steve