How to Protect Rights During Police Booking
The police booking process is just one of the various "stations" of the arrest process in which officers can engage in police brutality and over-reach their authority with excessive force. Issues of police brutality are notoriously thorny, as the balance between the authority of officers and the rights of the individual are often in a kind of flux in terms of a judicial ruling. Here are some ways to assert your rights on a case by case basis.
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Instructions
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Avoid escalation. During a police booking process, your actual rights are severely limited. You won't be found to have had your rights violated if there is any escalation by you, including verbal taunts or anything that could be construed as interfering with the booking process.
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Separate your pursuit of your rights from any animosity toward officers. When you talk negatively about officers, you put yourself under increased pressure and scrutiny. Often, talking about your rights in the abstract and as legitimate principle will yield better results.
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Try to cultivate an orderly relationship with booking staff without any unnecessary hostility. In many cases, staff respond to your attitudes, and the more calm, cool and collected you act, the better they will respond.
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Have a lawyer in mind. It may or may not help to mention your lawyer during the booking process, but an attorney knowledgeable in suing for police brutality can be an effective deterrent to staff acting aggressively. The key is to mention your lawyer and rights without making it seem like a challenge. If you can inform them that you do have ongoing communications with a competent lawyer, everyone at the booking office will most likely mind their P's and Q's, and if not, call your attorney at the first possible opportunity.
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Tips & Warnings
These are general observations on the behavior that sometimes leads to police brutality. These are not meant as hard and fast behavioral rules for a police booking situation as everything depends on the scenario. However, each of these suggestions relies on the principle of remaining in some form of composure during the process and minimizing the possibility of undue escalation.
