Intentionality and mens rea in police interrogations: The production of actions as crimes

Abstract

The relationship between intentions and actions is approached as a topic in and for the social practices of talk-in-interaction. The idea that actions may be based on prior intentional states, and have intended consequences, is considered not as a feature of actions themselves, but as a practical concern in how actions are reported. The article starts with examples from mundane conversation, in which overt mention of intentions is tied to circumstances in which the intended actions are in some way balked, unfulfilled, or a departure from expectation. The study then focuses on the special cultural setting of police interrogations, where vernacular descriptions of actions are oriented to the status of those actions as possible instances of some category of crime as defined in English law. The role of intentionality (in legal terms, mens rea) is an essential feature of this activity. In contrast to everyday conversation, the intentionality of criminal actions requires no “balked action” relevance for its topicalization but, rather, arises as part of the systematic practices of establishing intent regarding an action's effects, relevantly to legal requirements of criminal evidence for the alleged offense.