“It’s the devil”: responsibility allocation and negotiations In police-suspect interrogations In Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

Suspects employ diverse strategies to take or deny the responsibility of committing a particular crime for which they are interrogated. This paper examined how responsibilities are negotiated, to identify the strategies used to responsibilise and deresponsibilise crimes. Levinson’s Activity type and Caffi’s concepts of responsibilisation and deresponsibilisation serve as the theoretical anchors for the study. Interrogation sessions which included different case types were conducted at the Oyo State Criminal Investigation Department, Iyaganku, Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Nine strategies for (de)responsibilisation and six speech acts were identified. Suspects (de)responsibilise during interrogation to achieve personal goals of accepting or rejecting culpability.