I watched a season of Chicago PD, and noticed that they had a convenient "plot accelerator."
Whenever they got to a point, where the detectives and CSI would be painstakingly going through the evidence, sifting out clues, they'd throw the suspect into "the cage," and beat a confession out of them.
Every police show aggressively pushes the "civil rights bad" angle. Maybe once a season they will graciously consider "maybe civil rights good?" for part of an episode before concluding "no, civil rights bad."
I noticed the difference in this show as well, and I hope it continues.
Besides any conscious philosophy of the producers & writers, perhaps making the show more character driven as opposed to procedural has an impact on the stories. Maybe it's easier to understand when a suspect's rights are being violated (and to not be banal about it) when you're writing a deeper portrayal of the person who wields the power.
The sad thing about all those observations is, all these things surely happen anyway, and lots of people end up in jail anyway, because they don't have good representation to point out how they've been railroaded and they've got a plea bargain dangling in front of them.
People at least know "Nobody read me my rights", "I want to plead the Fifth", and "I want my lawyer" from seeing it on TV. If your arrestee-- or your jury pool-- has a higher level of awareness of common legal gotchas, they'd be able to demand a better deal. "I know you screwed up, the plea deal isn't good enough."
It is an accurate depiction of how Chicago police operated, unfortunately. In fact, one Chicago detective who tortured suspects went on to work as an interrogator at Guantanamo Bay[2]. It's terrible that the series would glamorize that behavior.
Goes off on wild goose chase based on that confession
Bad guys get away with their plot as a result
“Yes, you were torturing me, I’d obviously have said anything to get you to stop.”
I feel like I’ve seen this sequence once or twice, but I can’t remember what it was in. It actually seems like something that is more likely to be put in a comedy, where the protagonist can be shown to be stupid occasionally. Maybe Brooklyn 99, or Barry, or something like that?
Whenever they got to a point, where the detectives and CSI would be painstakingly going through the evidence, sifting out clues, they'd throw the suspect into "the cage," and beat a confession out of them.