NYPD Blue style "tuneups"/beatings of suspects to get confessions. Real or fantasy?

In My Humble Opinion
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To the mods- This is a real world police procedure question not a TV show inquiry as such, but if you feel it need to be moved - move away.

Over the years, throughout the course of the NYPD Blue show one constant has always been Andy Sipowitz, and occasionally others including the female officers, slapping around or roughing up perps or suspects while officers look the other way. I know that a bunch of NYC cops beat up Abner Louima and got prosecuted for it, but NYPD Blue makes this behavior seem like SOP and Sipowitz never gets caught. Are police beatings to elicit confessions something police still do?

I can understand a policeman using force in a confrontation, but is a real world policeman allowed any use of physical force to elicit cooperation while the suspect is in custody?

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      • My main high-school buddies all became police. None are detectives, but they have said it’s BS just for television. Not that it never happens- but it’s very rare, and if one person kept doing it over and over, fairly soon that person will be looking for another job.
  • Sometimes people can get tossed around on the street a bit but if you’ve watched Cops, you’ve seen how it happens and why. It’s usually something in the heat of struggle (not so well planned as on TV) because the suspects are large, have a weapon, are struggling violently or are known to be wanted for a particularly dangerous offense (murder, assault, etc.).
    …
    – As a real-world example, in my hometown there was a cop who almost qualified for the US olympic weightlifting team. “Almost” as in, the team needed X number of people on it, and of all the people who tried out, he was X + 2. As a cop, he quickly gained a reputation as a guy who’d throw people around for any minor reason. In three years he had two lawsuits and numerous other undocumented incidents of this, and was looking for a new job. He’s a private security guard at a local high school now.
    ~
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In Japanese TV dramas, it’s SOP in every cop/mystery drama:

(interrogation room)
cop: Did you do it?
suspect: nope.
cop graps suspect by collar, smacks him/her around a few times. If he’s the ‘cool’ type, he blows cigarette smoke in the suspect’s face first.
cop: Did you do it?
tearful confession ensues.

As for the real world?

  1. Lawsuits against police are very rare in Japan.
  2. Suspects can be held for three weeks (or more) without being charged.
  3. The national average is a 98% conviction rate, most of which involve confessions during questioning.

I don’t know about you, but I know what conclusions I’m drawing.