Everyone has seen the shows. The cops stand behind the one way mirror talking to each other, maybe even shouting at each other if it is an intense episode. Meanwhile, the suspect (who can apparently hear none of this) is sitting a few feet away on the other side of the mirror in a featureless room at a metal table acting all nervous.
The cops take “breaks” during the interrogation to go talk to their boss behind the one-way glass.
To dial the intensity up a bit the suspect may get agitated enough to start banging on the glass and shouting “I know you’re in there!”
How much does this look like a standard police station interrogation room?
Do other cops really stand behind the mirror often?
Do they go back and forth from the interrogation room to the mirror room?
Is the glass really that soundproof?
I am not familiar with all police stations, but all of the ones I have seen have dispensed with some mirrored glass and replaced them with closets and cameras.
I’ve never been in a police interrogation room, but the show The Shield only had cameras in their interrogation room. That allowed the cop to pull the plug and get the information “by any means necessary.”
Obviously TV drama, but it makes sense. That way each interrogation room doesn’t need an accompanying room behind the one way mirror and the lead detective can monitor multiple interrogations at once.
I’ve seen radio studios, and they get very very good sound insulation by having double panes of glass in rubber mountings.
Plus, one-way mirrors depend on the differnce in lighting between the inside (reflected) room and the observer room. Much more light is supposed to be reflected than let through. Having a well-lit corridor, or a huge window with all the light coming in from the outside, seems like it might not work so well.
Same concept as mirrored car windows. The suspect does not need to pound and yell, they could cup their hands around their eyes against the glass to see what’s going on outside the room.
Most of the police interrogations I’ve seen on TruTV the camera is high up at an angle, so it’s like a bubble camera in the ceiling rather than being through one-way glass, so I imagine mirrors have become obsolete with technology.
I’ve heard two schools of thought as far as how to design interview rooms too
Make it as intimidating and uncomfortable as possible- no windows, cinder block walls, one-way mirror and obvious cameras, suspect gets a metal folding chair, to intimidate the suspect and get him to confess so he can get out of there.
2)Make it as comfortable as possible, so the suspect isn’t reminded of where he’s going for 25 to life if he confesses, and so it looks non-threatening if it’s played for a jury. The Arias interrogation looked just like an office conference room.
I’m a retired cop and in my experience these interview rooms with one-way mirrors are generally accurate. Another common use of the one-way mirror is in rooms designed for line-ups.
The agency I retired from had a huge 1 way mirror in the line up room. Where I’ve been working part-time since I retired only has a small rectangle in the door (approx 12x6 inches) 1 way mirror which allows us to peek in on the interviewer every now and then. The camera and voice recorders are inside the room.