Parents’ knowledge and attitudes about youths’ interrogation rights

Examining the Administration of Youth Interrogation Rights: A Field Study of Canadian Police Practices

“…Appropriate adults are often not trained legal professionals, and research has shown consistently that adults struggle to understand their interrogation rights and legal proceedings (Cleary & Warner, 2017;Eastwood & Snook, 2009; also see Fenner et al, 2002;Grisso, 1981;Viljoen, Zapf, & Roesch, 2007). Thus, if adults do not understand interrogation rights or legal proceedings, they arguably are unable to assist youth adequately.…”

The Advice Parents Give Their Children During Police Questioning

“…Although they did not discuss the reasons for these findings, other researchers have suggested this type of result may be explained by the dual role parents manage during police questioning. On the one hand, parents may feel responsible for protecting their child from legal consequences, yet on the other hand they may feel they need to teach their child to take responsibility for their actions and or teach them moral values such as truth and honesty (Cavanagh et al, 2020;Cleary & Warner, 2017). It has also been proposed that parents may see it as their role to elicit information from their child in order to help police with their investigation (Cleary, 2014), or to teach their child a lesson (Broeking, 2009).These findings and explanations suggest that parents may not always act in the best interests of their child in police questioning situations.…”

“…Our findings, however, do not fit with previous research that found considerably higher levels of parental understanding of the right to silence. For example, Cleary & Warner (2017) found that 77.2% of parents understood the young person's right to silence when they were arrested by the police. This is much higher than our study, where parents advised their child of the right to silence only 14% of the time pre-video and 43% of the time post-video.…”

“…No defendants reported their parents wanted them to remain silent (Viljoen et al, 2005). It may be that by asking our participants to apply their understanding through hypothetical advice we have tapped into some underlying beliefs, such as believing that a police questioning situation is an opportunity to teach their child to tell the truth (Cavanagh et al, 2020;Cleary & Warner, 2017) or believing it is their role to elicit information from their child in order to help police with their investigation (Cleary, 2014). This may have resulted in our findings being influenced by the same bias that is observed in field studies but not observed when researchers measure knowledge and understanding outside of a police questioning context.…”

“…This suggests that, although parent's knowledge and understanding of their child's rights is an important aspect of the advice they give in police questioning situations, it might not be the only variable driving high levels of legally problematic advice. As discussed earlier, prior research has identified attitudes towards the justice system, inaccurate beliefs about the justice system and personal values as factors that may also influence the advice nominated people give their young person in police questioning situations (Cavanagh et al, 2020;Cleary & Warner, 2017;Cleary, 2014).…”