Surely PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) in the UK and various rulings in the USA and other countries was meant to change all that?
Yes, but the problem is not that statements are not being recorded, it is what happens afterwards. Frequently, video and audio tapes are given to clerical and secretarial staff to transcribe under the mistaken belief that any competent keyboard operator can undertake the highly complex task of transcribing interactive speech between two or more speakers or decipher important texts like ransom notes, suicide notes, etc. Somebody who is used to transcribing a letter dictated by his/her boss, for example, does not automatically have the knowledge and/or skill to transcribe a naturalistic conversation. It is a separate, professional skill.
