gathering and investigation, such as DNA and surveillance evidence. Where police agencies are not equipped with the proper resources and tools to investigate and solve crimes, they are incentivized to obtain confessions by any means available to them. In one participating State in Central Asia, for example, where investigations are conducted with limited resources and in limited timeframes,48 there are reports of systemic torture or other ill-treatment in pre-trial detention, primarily to extract confessions to use as evidence.49 Following a visit to this country in 2012, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, lent support to the claims, emphasizing that the tendency to consider obtaining confessions through ill-treatment or torture was at least partially based on a lack of capacity and expertise in investigating crimes.50 21. Even in jurisdictions where there are various forms of evidence gathering, and sufficient resources available (such as to gather DNA evidence), interviewing techniques that may amount to ill-treatment or torture and a tendency to over-rely on confessions for convictions can still be observed. In one North American participating State, for example, 30 per cent of the people exonerated by DNA evidence falsely confessed to crimes they did not commit.51 This can be partly attributed to the use of interrogation techniques such as the Reid Technique, which has been widely criticized for containing coercive elements, and for the associated risk of eliciting false confessions.52 In another North American participating State, where the technique is also used in some provinces, the Supreme Court stated that in one case where the technique was used, the interrogation was “intense, focused and unrelenting, and ultimately oppressive.”53 22. From the above, it becomes clear that there is a need for a holistic approach to moving away from confession-based convictions in the justice system to reduce the risk of torture or other ill-treatment during investigations, including through training and education for police and other investigative bodies. Legal safeguards, 48 49 50 51 52 53 20 OMCT, “Human Rights violations in Tajikistan alternative report to the United Nations Committee against Torture”, 37th session, (2006) p. 8. ICJ Global Redress and Accountability Initiative, “Achieving Justice for Gross Human Rights Violations in Tajikistan”, October 2017, pp. 5–6. UN Human Rights Council Twenty-second session, Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of punishment, Juan E. Méndez, (2013) A/ HRC/22/53/Add.1 p.7 para 31. The Innocence Project, “Leading Police Consulting Group Will No Longer Teach the Reid Technique” in United States, (2017). The Path to Justice: Preventing Wrongful Convictions,Report of the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Heads of Prosecutions Subcommittee on the Prevention of Wrongful Convictions, (2011), Chapter VI – False Confessions. The Supreme Court of Canada, R. v. Peters, [2001] 1 S.C.R. 997, 2001 SCC 34 at paras. 14, 15, 66.