The Legislative Assembly of Rio approved on Thursday (21/09) a bill that defines the rules and procedures for recognizing those being investigated in Rio’s police stations. The text will be sent to Governor Claudio Castro, who can approve or veto the project. The text provides that representation for the arrest cannot be done just by recognizing photos of the suspect.
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If approved by the governor, the resolution establishes the need for more investigative police to determine an arrest, discover where the suspect was at the time of the crime, what his alibi was and how the recognition was made, among other measures. The law could put an end to the suspect list that some police stations use.
The New Photographic Recognition Rules Approved in Rio
The Request for representation of arrest must be made using evidence of authorship and materiality, and not just with recognition through photos as support. In crimes allegedly committed by several people, multiple lineups must be used, with only one suspect per lineup and no repetition of people.
Furthermore, the police must check the functional record of the person being investigated to confirm the confluence of working hours/occupation with the incident.
Other rules include: Prior interview with the victim or witness to describe the person being investigated or prosecuted; Line-up of people or standardized photographs to be presented to the victim or witness for recognition purposes; The record of the response of the victim or witness in relation to the recognition or not of the person being investigated or prosecuted and; The procedure must be fully recorded, from the preliminary interview to the declaration of the degree of conviction of the victim or witness, with the respective video made available to the parties, if requested.
Recent Cases
In September 2020, cellist Luiz Carlos Justino, aged 26, from Orquestra da Grota, in Niterói, was unjustly imprisoned for four days and acquitted due to lack of evidence. The arrest took place after he was approached by a police officer in the city center, who claimed that there was a warrant for his arrest for an alleged armed robbery. The only evidence was a photograph that appeared in a police station book. At the same time and day, photos and videos proved that Justino was playing in band at a bakery in the oceanic region of Niterói.
Studies Prove Failures
The bill is based on a survey by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the United States, on photographic recognition. The conclusion of the study is that, even with the use of artificial intelligence, there are flaws in photographic recognition. For white people, the failure rate is 1%, that is, one in every 100, and for black people, 34.7%, that is, one in every 3 cases.
Up to Six Months in Prison
A study by the Public Defender’s Office of Rio de Janeiro (DPRJ) identified that, in the state of Rio, people spend an average of 1 year and two months unjustly imprisoned for errors in the use of photographic recognition. Of the 242 cases analyzed by the Public Defender’s Office, the defendants were acquitted in 30% of the cases. Among them, more than 80% (54 people) were in pre-trial detention – there are those who spent almost six years in pre-trial detention until acquittal.
