It is generally axiomatic advice, in the USA, that if you are arrested, you should never speak to cops unless you have had the benefit of an attorney first - in fact, that you shouldn’t talk to cops when questioned, even if not arrested.
Given that conservatives are generally more pro-police and liberals more anti-police (yes, I’m painting with a super-broad brush, but just roll with it,) are conservatives less likely than liberals to give such advice to people - “stay silent and don’t talk to cops?”
(Speaking of which - I have a tangential question: Is it also common advice, in non-American nations, that one should never speak to cops when arrested without a lawyer?)
Never heard that. All the conservatives I know probably say the same thing as most Democrats: If you are stopped by the police, be polite, coorperate with instructions, and if you feel you are being wronged, get a lawyer.
I have never heard anyone say you should tell the cops whatever they want to know.
But also, I don’t know of many liberals who say you should NEVER say anything to the cops without a lawyer. If a cop pulls you over for speeding and says, 'Do you know why I pulled you over?", not many people of any party woild simply demand a lawyer. That’s a good way to turn a small problem into a bigger one.
Edit: on reading back you specifically ssy ‘when being arrested’. Personally, I think the point where you are being arrested is the point where you should shut up until talking to a lawyer.
It’s all about good judgment. But your best defense against having an issue with the police when stopped is to be helpful and polite and cooperative, short of incriminating yourself.
I’m conservative, and I’ve tended to be more in favor of speaking to cops than most of the posters here in prior discussions (though to be clear, that’s not in a situation where you’ve already been arrested).
But as relates to your OP, my rationale is not because I’m more “pro-police”, but rather for the very reason that I tend to distrust the cops.
My feeling is that the cops can and will slant the evidence in favor of whatever they believe to be the overall story. Therefore, your job is to convince these guys that you’re the good guy here, and at any rate to avoid convincing them that you’re the bad guy, because once they get the idea in their heads that you’re the bad guy then they’re going to look to get you, regardless of what the evidence might say to an unbiased mind. And the problem here is that while you might be - and should be - distrustful of the cops, the cops themselves don’t tend to take this attitude, and will generally view themselves much more benignly. Therefore, they are apt to view a refusal to cooperate with them as evidence of something to hide, i.e. guilt. And once they think you’re guilty, then the fact that you’ve not given additional evidence against yourself in the form of an interview is going to be of very limited value, because they can come up with all sorts of other evidence on their own.
So on balance, I think you’re generally better off speaking to them. But I don’t think being conservative or pro-police is a factor in the above reasoning.
[And again, this wouldn’t apply if you’ve already been arrested, in which case they obviously already think you’re guilty and are out to have you implicate yourself, so that half of the equation is off the table. In that case I would agree to get a lawyer.]
I thought that once. I don’t think that anymore. When they start getting chatty, the police have the evidence they have. If you talk, they have even more. More than half the time I’ve seen the police turn their ‘investigation’ around on the victim who reported the crime–they didn’t go after a perp, even when one was named. They went fishing to find something to pin on the victim. Conservative or liberal, I don’t know what kind of fool could experience that and still think the cops are the good guys.