Hayley Cleary
Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and Public Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University
Key Findings
- The median length of the juvenile interrogation was 46 minutes and had a large range, from 6 minutes to nearly 5 hours.
- Notable characteristics of the youth in the sample showed that they frequently agreed to questioning without the presence of a parent or advocate.
- For all of the sampled interrogations, there was no attorney present on behalf of the juvenile. The most common third-party present for the sampled juvenile interviews was a parent.
- There were varied outcomes to the juvenile interviews including full confessions, partial admissions of incriminating behavior, and full denials of guilt.
Description
In the article, “Police Interviewing and Interrogation of Juvenile Suspects: A Descriptive Examination of Actual Cases,” Cleary examines real police interrogations of juvenile suspects to better understand the processes, characteristics, and outcomes of these interrogations. Previous literature in this area has focused on hypothetical scenarios to understand juvenile decision-making in mock interrogation scenarios. This research sought to determine the characteristics of juvenile interrogations, how interrogations last, the number of interrogators involved, and how frequently juvenile suspects confess to crimes. To conduct her study, Clearly analyzed 57 electronic recordings of juvenile interrogations from 17 police departments across 13 states with legislation or state mandates in place that required police to record custodial interrogations. The results showed that the median length of the juvenile interrogation was 46 minutes and had a large range, from 6 minutes to nearly 5 hours. Notable characteristics of the youth in the sample showed that they frequently agreed to questioning without the presence of a parent or advocate. For all of the sampled interrogations, there was no attorney present on behalf of the juvenile. The most common third-party present for the sampled juvenile interviews was a parent. There were varied outcomes to the juvenile interviews including full confessions, partial admissions of incriminating behavior, and full denials of guilt. This study offered valuable insight into the true interrogative process that led to the conclusion that youth may consent to questioning without a full understanding of their legal protections. The author notes the need for further research into understanding how external characteristics impact suspect stress, the use of actual (not training-based) questioning practices, and the frequency of Miranda waiver use in juvenile interrogations.