Illinois is the first US state to ban its police officers from lying to underage suspects

Illinois became the first US state on Thursday (July 15) to prohibit its police officers from lying when questioning minors.

Democratic Governor JB Pritzker has signed a law, which will come into force in 2022, to put an end to a practice accused of increasing the risk of false confessions and therefore of judicial errors.

Read also: The untraceable reform of the American police

The confessions of children and adolescents obtained "

", either by presenting erroneous facts or with false promises of clemency, will no longer be admissible during trials, according to this text.

"

" said the governor, quoted in a statement.

This reform, supported by police and prosecutor unions, "

" according to the document.

Legal for decades in the United States, these interrogation methods have "

" who are more easily influenced, according to a study by the Law School of the University of New York. York published in 2017. The National registry of exonerations, which compiles the records of people wrongly convicted and then cleared, estimates that 12% of the more than 2,800 cases in its database involved false confessions.

Read also: Washington invites the UN to investigate racism in the United States

Among the most resounding cases, figures that of five black and Hispanic teenagers, who had been convicted of the rape and the attempted murder of a jogger in Central Park, in 1989 in New York, on the basis of confessions made to them. had been ripped off with false promises of release. The “

” spent between six and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist admitted to assaulting the jogger and acting alone.