Information Gathering, Interrogation of Suspects and Polygraph Examination for the Purposes of Criminal Proceedings in the Republic of Croatia

Abstract

Frequencies of normative changes that, as a rule, have taken place in the area of prior criminal proceedings in the last decade are reflected in the work of the police in the area of detecting the perpetrator of a criminal offense. The paper points out the impact of these changes on the work of the police. One of the most significant changes for the police occurred in 2008, when the police, while clarifying a criminal offense, were prevented from collecting information from a person who had acquired the status of a suspect. Such a person must be interrogated according to special rules that allow him to exercise all his rights of defense in accordence with the principle of prohibition of self-incrimination. This change also initiated the question of how this is reflected in the polygraph examination conducted by the police during the clarification of these same criminal offenses. For the conducted research, secondary sources of data were collected from police files on criminal offenses for which polygraph examination was undertaken in the Republic of Croatia during 2017 - 2019 (three years period), as well as the data from records kept for the implementation of polygraph examination. For the purposes of this paper, all polygraph tests performed in the specified period were analyzed, including the following variables: total number of interrogated persons, distribution of interrogated persons according to the competent police administrations, the results of the conducted examination, total number of persons unsuitable for interrogation and criminal offenses interrogated for.