Miranda's Revenge

Police Interrogation as a Confidence Game

Bibliographic Data

ID4889931
AuthorsRichard A Leo (0009-0008-1154-9011, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume30
Issue2
Pages259-288
Publication date1996-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLaw & Society Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0023-9216 • E-ISSN: 1540-5893
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3053960
OpenAlexW3123533141
LanguageEN
Citations received31
References cited17

By requiring that police issue fourfold warnings to silence and appointed counsel prior to any custodial questioning, Miranda v. Arizona (1966) created universalistic criteria for the legal regulation of police interrogations. While Miranda appears to be partly responsible for the dramatic decline in violence in the interrogation room in the 20th century, American police have become skilled at the practice of manipulation and deception during interrogation. Drawing on more than 500 hours of participant observation fieldwork in three police departments, I argue that the sequence, structure, and process of contemporary American police interrogation can best be understood as a confidence game based on the manipulation and betrayal of trust. Understanding interrogation as a confidence game, I argue, goes a long way toward explaining (1) the paradoxical observation that criminal suspects continue to provide police with incriminating statements, admissions and confessions in the majority of cases; (2) the nature of the social interaction during interrogation more generally; and (3) how contemporary police interrogators both exercise and mystify their power inside the interrogation room

Betrayal · Criminology · Deception · Interrogation · Political science · Power (physics · Silence · Sociology · Voluntariness · Criminal Law and Evidence · Deception detection and forensic psychology · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology · Torture, Ethics, and Law

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