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In the context of police interviewing suspects:

Thank God we're in the United States because most interviews in Italy, Spain, and so forth, start out physically. Okay. There's no police... uh... police abuse over there. They can do pretty much what they want. Any time they want. Any how they want. So just be aware of that and be thankful for [inaudible].
Officer George Bruch, Virginia Beach Police Department, Don't Talk to the Police, YouTube, 2012; nearly 20 million views.

This sounds like nonsense to me; I'm just wondering if this is (or was in 2012 when the video was uploaded) even remotely accurate.

Question: Do police interrogations in Italy and Spain "start out physically" and can police "do pretty much what they want"?

I searched italy police interview abuse and spain police interview abuse and found Raffaele Sollecito says he was slapped during interrogation by Italian police (2012), and ...recent house arrest of five police officers in Verona following allegations that they have abused and tortured detainees (2023). But this didn't really lead anywhere.

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    There are concerns about police brutality in Spain (European Parliament, Amnesty) but this claim is very vague. Is the specific claim that in Spain in over 50% of interrogations (of whom?) police will use physical force (slapping, punching, shaking, threats of violence, what exactly?) before speaking to suspects (at all?)? I doubt anyone would measure that specifically, but I doubt it's true.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 31 at 11:57
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    The fact the officers in Verona were placed under house arrest, i.e., punished, seems to already invalidate the claim "can do pretty much what they want", at least for Italy.
    – Jörg W Mittag
    Commented Aug 1 at 7:07
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    My experience with police in southern Spain, near Granada, in countryside, was that they were stern and unfriendly but not physically violent. Well, not unless situation warranted it I guess, which I didn't ever happen to see or hear of. This is all anecdotal. There weren't many police in the thinly populated area. Local people did seem to trust them rather than be in fear. This was in the 1990s though.
    – Ellie K
    Commented Aug 1 at 7:55
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    FWTW, regarding Italy theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/… "Five police officers in the Italian city of Verona have been arrested on charges of torture and bodily harm against migrants and homeless people." Which seems to disprove they can do "whatever they want" with no consequences, over there. But it would perhaps take more to flesh out an answer.
    – days of love iff good genes
    Commented Aug 2 at 7:09
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    Please can we avoid pseudo-answers in comments. If you have an answer, then answer. If you feel the question can be improved then comment.
    – Jamiec ♦
    Commented Aug 2 at 12:41

2 Answers 2

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As a matter of law police in Italy and Spain cannot do "pretty much what they want" unless we assume that means that they want to treat you in accordance with practices respectful of human rights. As an example, one just has to read the section on Interrogations and self-incriminating statements of Italian Code of Criminal Procedures in Wikipedia:

When a person who is neither an indagato (suspect) nor an imputato (defendant), interrogated by the police or the prosecutor, reveals pieces of information that might lead to his incrimination, the interrogation must be immediately stopped, the person must be invited to nominate a lawyer and be warned that the information disclosed may render necessary an investigation. These self-incriminating statements are inadmissible in court.

I could not find an equivalent page for Spain, but I found that both Italy and Spain are signatories of the United Nations Convention Against Torture since the 1980's. Hence I think we can safely assume torture from agents of the state is illegal in Spain.

That said, police brutality does happen in those and many other countries (probably in all countries). However the way the question is asked, I think it implies that such actions are legally allowed, and that is certainly not the case.

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    Perhaps salient then, is it decriminalized as opposed to illegal?
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Commented Aug 3 at 7:10
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    Not sure what you mean by decrimiminalized in this context. Do you mean that perhaps it happens so often that it is effectively as if the laws against it did not exist?
    – Luxspes
    Commented Aug 3 at 7:17
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    @JiminyCricket.: pretty doubtful, for Italy at least. They certainly charged some officers for violence against homeless and immigrants theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/07/… Exactly what proportion of such acts go unpunished would be more difficult to find out. It also probably varies a bit with the government in power. Sinking migrants' boats 'unofficially' might more tolerated under some governments. But acceptance of general police violence against Italians probably doesn't vary much with that.
    – days of love iff good genes
    Commented Aug 3 at 14:24
  • Spain might be a more complex affair with the recent Catalan separatism movement etc. There was certainly a level of violence by both police and average citizens (on both sides) involved in that conflict, suggesting that some partial return to "Franco-time ways" might be more tolerated in some quarters. Spanish police made liberal use of rubber bullets during protests, according to the US State Department state.gov/reports/… But torture in custody still seems rare, unlike in Franco's times.
    – days of love iff good genes
    Commented Aug 3 at 14:41
  • N.B. the State Department has a similar report about Italy, which may help with some details state.gov/reports/… The only specific concern they raised in that one year was how a prisoner revolt during Covid was put down.
    – days of love iff good genes
    Commented Aug 3 at 14:46
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Hard to say.

In the case of Spain, anti-terrorist laws have shrouded a veil of secrecy about police interventions which adds over francoist habits never adequately purged. Spain has received many complaints of racial bias against minorities in stop-and-frisk operations, and they are accused of using much more violence against non-Spaniard subjects(link in Spanish).

EU officials have chastised the Spanish police for lack of adequate treatment of people with mental disorders, migrants in detention centers and excessive use of force by anti-riot police against demostrators.

How does that compare with other countries, though? It's even harder to say. For starters, it does not look as Spain's problem are unique. Germany topples Spain in denounces against the police for violence against minorities; Spain's deaths of detainees while in custody double that of the UK, but are a third of France's (link in Spanish). An EU study focused on Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece and Romania detected the same type of problems with racial bias on their respective police forces.

In general, I'd say that Spanish police is about average for a european country in their use of violence, so is, a tiny fraction of the violence you would routinely experience in the USA, and about thousand times less likely to be killed by them.

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