Questioning under authority: police interrogation, coercive pragmatics, and the production of legal confession in Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.67490/ijll.v1i3.1035Keywords:
coercive pragmatics, confession evidence, forensic linguistics, Indonesian criminal procedure, police interrogationAbstract
Background: Police interrogation in Indonesia is a legally consequential speech event because suspect statements may move from pressured questioning into BAP records and later operate as confession evidence in court. Objective: This study examines how interrogative authority, coercive pragmatic potential, and confession textualization shape production of legal confession in Indonesian criminal procedure. Method: This study applies qualitative forensic-pragmatic discourse analysis to a documentary corpus of public interrogation-related materials, legal-context documents, and recent scholarship, using structured coding for question design, pragmatic pressure, and textual transformation. Results: Interrogative authority appears most strongly through leading, confirmatory, presuppositional, and forced-choice questions that restrict suspect narrative autonomy while preserving a procedural appearance of inquiry. Coercive potential is distributed across evidential framing, moral appeals, implied consequences, and cooperation-oriented language, indicating that pressure may operate pragmatically without explicit threat. Confession becomes legally durable through reformulation, BAP monologic rendering, confirmation sequences, and later evidentiary uptake, which may obscure hesitation, repair, or interactional constraint. Implication: This study argues that confession reliability should be assessed through the full pathway from questioning to record-making, not merely through formal voluntariness. Novelty: This study offers an integrated forensic-pragmatic model linking interrogation grammar, coercive implication, and documentary stabilization in Indonesian legal discourse
Downloads
References
[1] G. Gudjonsson, "The science-based pathways to understanding false confessions and wrongful convictions," Front. Psychol., vol. 12, 2021.
[2] H. M. D. Cleary and R. Bull, "Contextual factors predict self-reported confession decision-making: A field study of suspects' actual police interrogation experiences," Law Hum. Behav., 2021.
[3] M. Catlin, D. B. Wilson, A. D. Redlich, T. Bettens, C. A. Meissner, S. Bhatt, and S. E. Brandon, "Interview and interrogation methods and their effects on true and false confessions: A systematic review update and extension," Campbell Syst. Rev., vol. 20, 2024.
[4] L. Filipović, "Confession to make: Inadvertent confessions and admissions in United Kingdom and United States police contexts," Front. Psychol., vol. 12, 2021.
[5] S. Butt, "Indonesia's criminal justice system on trial," New Crim. Law Rev., vol. 24, pp. 3-58, 2021.
[6] R. Ramadani, A. R. Syaifullah, W. Gunawan, D. Kusrini, S. Rahayu, and B. C. D. Putra, "Implicature and question types of police interrogation: An analysis of communication in a theft case," World J. Engl. Lang., 2023.
[7] I. Arifianti, "Pola interogatif penyidik pada saksi ahli bahasa pada kasus delik aduan," Pena J. Ilmu Pengetahuan Teknol., 2022.
[8] E. Sholihatin, S. Sukirmiyadi, and N. Haryono, "Analysis of police investigation interviews in defamation cases: A forensic linguistics perspective," J. Lang. Lang. Teach., 2024.
[9] R. A. Jasmir and V. Magria, "Forensic linguistic examination of illocutionary acts in the police BAP of the 'EN' murder case in Muara Bungo," Jurnal Ilmiah Langue and Parole, 2025.
[10] M. Komter, "Institutional and academic transcripts of police interrogations," Front. Commun., 2022.
[11] B. Barnes, B. Myers, R. S. Pond, and K. Meyer, "The influence of false evidence ploy variants on perceptions of coercion and deception," J. Forensic Psychol. Res. Pract., vol. 24, pp. 500-523, 2023.
[12] G. A. Holt and M. A. Palmer, "Individual attitudes toward coerced confessions change perception of confession evidence: Why jurors may accept or reject poor-quality confessions," Psychiatry Psychol. Law, vol. 31, pp. 997-1014, 2023.
[13] T. Bettens, H. M. D. Cleary, and R. Bull, "Humane interrogation strategies are associated with confessions, cooperation, and disclosure: Evidence from a field study of incarcerated individuals in the United States," Crim. Justice Behav., vol. 51, pp. 949-969, 2024.
[14] F. A. Pascawati, P. Djatmika, and M. Istiqomah, "Urgency of exclusionary rules regulation in Indonesian criminal justice system," Legal Horiz., 2024.
[15] R. Kasim, "From forced confessions to digital coercion: Rethinking the admissibility of evidence in criminal trials in Indonesia," Litigasi, 2025.
[16] M. Yasir, G. Gunarto, and B. T. Bawono, "Legal reconstruction of suspect investigation based on Pancasila justice values," Scholars Int. J. Law Crime Justice, 2024.
[17] M. Ansori, "Speech act strategies in police interrogation transcripts: Evidence from bahasa Indonesia investigative records," Indones. J. Lang. Leg. Discourse, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 51-60, 2026.
[18] M. A. Adegbite and A. May, "Code-switching as a marked socio-pragmatic discourse strategy in Nigerian police interrogation," Lang. Law/Linguagem e Direito, 2023.
[19] T. Akinrinlola and I. M. Lamidi, "Argumentation in police-suspect interactions in Ibadan, Nigeria," South. Afr. Linguist. Appl. Lang. Stud., vol. 42, pp. 542-553, 2024.
[20] H. I. Kadhim and D. Q. O. Al-Azzawi, "Exploring the use of deictic expressions in police interrogations: A pragmatic perspective," Int. J. Multidiscip. Res. Growth Eval., 2024.
[21] F. R. Olanrewaju, O. A. W. Ademola, and I. Obinna, "Interrogation in Nigerian police-suspect discourse," Theory Pract. Lang. Stud., 2021.
[22] E. B. Olayinka, "Pragmatic strategies in police interrogation of accused persons," Kampala Int. Univ. Interdiscip. J. Humanit. Soc. Sci., 2022.
[23] W. B. M. Setiyawan, "Forensic linguistic evidence in Indonesian courtrooms: A study of language use in criminal verdicts," Indones. J. Lang. Leg. Discourse, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 1-12, 2026.
[24] H. M. D. Cleary, L. A. Guarnera, J. Aaron, and M. Crane, "How trauma may magnify risk of involuntary and false confessions among adolescents," Wrongful Convict. Law Rev., 2021.
[25] A. Heemskerk, L. Smalarz, S. Madon, M. Guyll, and Y. Yang, "Mechanisms of self-regulatory decline in accusatorial interrogations," Behav. Sci., vol. 15, 2025.
[26] L. Hunt, "Police interrogation and fraudulent epistemic environments," J. Public Policy, 2025.
[27] L. Farrugia, "False confessions: A study space analysis," Behav. Sci. Law, vol. 43, pp. 574-596, 2025.
[28] M. Welner, M. DeLisi, and T. Janusewski, "False confessions: An integrative review of the phenomenon," Behav. Sci. Law, vol. 43, pp. 185-202, 2024.
[29] A. Bergeron, F. Fortin, Y. Charette, N. Deslauriers-Varin, and S. Paquette, "It's all about time: The influence of behaviour and timelines on suspect disclosure during investigative interviews," Policing Soc., vol. 33, pp. 820-840, 2023.
[30] C. E. Kelly, N. Meehan, M. McClary, and E. M. Jenaway, "Just a normal conversation: Investigative interviews in a county jail," Crim. Justice Behav., vol. 48, pp. 1166-1184, 2021.
[31] K. Li, "The production of 'indisputable' confession evidence in China," Crit. Asian Stud., vol. 57, pp. 55-72, 2024.
[32] Y. Mou, "Techniques to exploit vulnerabilities: Persuasion and education in Chinese police interrogations," Br. J. Criminol., 2021.
[33] D. S. Setiyawan and M. H. Muhtar, "Contemplating the morality of law enforcement in Indonesia," J. Law Sustain. Dev., vol. 11, no. 10, 2023.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Ivan Riyadi (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License