Perp Walk - in Other Countries

In Other Countries

In Canada reporters are similarly allowed to witness defendants being brought to court in restraints, and photograph it. However, Ryerson University journalism professor Lisa Taylor says that such activities, were they undertaken deliberately to shame or humiliate a defendant, could lead to "a legal claim for abuse of legal process". This, she explains, helps avoid "the deliberate or circus atmosphere that so often surrounds high-profile arrests in the States."

Policies elsewhere in the world vary. In Britain and France defendants are brought to court in vans with blacked-out windows. In some other European countries the accused's name may not be published, or the media decline to, in order to make it easier for an offender to resume normal life after conviction. Edward Wasserman speculates that criticism of European criminal-justice systems in light of a perceived rise in crime stemming from immigration, and the availability of suppressed or unreported information online, may lead to a greater openness there. "The next U.S. export to join Starbucks and iPads in the Old World may yet be the perp walk."

Similar practices, some involving greater exposure and potential incrimination of the defendant, exist outside Europe and North America. Police in some Latin American countries have those arrested confess to the crime before the cameras. In Mexico, the equivalent practice is called a presentacion (Spanish for "introduction"). Defendants suspected of involvement in the drug trade are posed for pictures surrounded by weapons, cash, and drugs, clothed in whatever they were wearing when arrested. Presentaciones have drawn criticisms similar to those directed at the perp walk.

In some Asian countries an arrested suspect is also exposed to the media. Police in Japan and South Korea often invite the media to re-enactments of crimes staged by the accused, a practice common in Thailand as well. In 2010, South Korean police had a man suspected of raping a child re-enact the crime at the scene, with not only the media but angry, jeering neighbors looking on. Prosecutors there also frequently parade white-collar suspects before the media, although even convicted felons can bring cases against them for an offense against honor. China, where images of chained suspects have often been broadcast to deter crime, ended in 2010 a long practice of forcing suspected prostitutes to walk in "shame parades" through the streets, after public outrage. In contrast, Hong Kong police puts specially designed bags over the heads of arrested suspects to conceal their identity.

In 2011, police and other security forces in Iraq began making similar displays of suspected insurgents and other criminals. Two defendants were taken to crime scenes to recount their role in a massacre to assembled media, while alleged members of a gang of robbers were posed behind tables stacked with the goods they had supposedly stolen. In one instance that officials later admitted they lost control of, suspected terrorists were led into an auditorium where the acting Minister of the Interior attempted to detail their crimes before not only the media but an audience of the family members of the victims. He was unable to finish as members of the latter group interrupted him with calls for the defendants' execution and shoeing attempts.

These practices increased after U.S. troops left Iraq. When the government announced an arrest warrant against former deputy prime minister Tariq al-Hashimi, who had fled to the Kurdish-controlled regions of the country, it broadcast the confessions of three of his bodyguards to support charges that he had ordered the assassinations of rivals. This, and the other public displays of accused criminals, was criticized by foreign observers and some Iraqi officials. "It is a crime to put this on television" said one of the latter. "It is a shame, and it is a legacy of the former dictator." Security officials responded that they were trying to assure the Iraqi public that they were actively working to protect them and apprehend terrorists. "If we say we caught the leader of Al Qaeda, who will believe it?" said an Interior Ministry official. "This is to show credibility. We are sure we are doing the right thing."