Police Officers’ Knowledge and Perception Regarding Miranda and the Public Safety Exception

<p>The public safety exception to <em>Miranda</em> attempts to balance an individual’s Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination with police officer and community safety. Under the public safety exception, if officers possess a reasonable belief that their safety or the public’s safety is in imminent danger, they may forego reading the <em>Miranda</em> warnings to a suspect in custody whom they wish to interrogate. The purpose of this empirical, survey study is to examine police officer perception and knowledge of the public safety exception. To this end, a questionnaire was distributed to officers in a large, populated county in the Southeastern United States. The survey’s outcomes shed light on the three hypotheses: (1) whether police officers with higher education are more likely to perceive it to be easier to apply the public safety exception to <em>Miranda</em>; (2) whether police officers with more training are more likely to have greater knowledge of the public safety exception to <em>Miranda</em>; and finally (3) whether police officers with a higher rank are more likely to have greater knowledge of the public safety exception to <em>Miranda</em>. This study both fills a gap in the existing literature and discusses policy implications for law enforcement practices in general and the public safety exception in particular.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Criminal Justice (MSCJ)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology and Criminal Justice

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Goldstein, Alexandria

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Christopher Totten
• Dr. Gang Lee
• Dr. Richard Stringer

• Police Officers
• Miranda
• Public Safety Exception
• Knowledge
• Perception
• Legal Studies
• Social and Behavioral Sciences

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/mscj_etd/10

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu:mscj_etd-1011