Perceptions of juvenile confessions as a function of police report and questioning quality

Recent research has shown that mock jurors are sensitive to interrogation coerciveness and its relation to risk of false confessions in adults if they can see interrogation tactics used, but not if provided with a police report that omits these tactics (Kassin et al., 2017). The present study was designed to extend these findings to a juvenile confession case. The current study analyzed the effects of interrogation quality and type of evidence presented on mock jurors' perceptions of a juvenile confession. Participants (N= 602) read a case in which coerciveness (highly vs slightly), police report type (accurate vs inaccurate vs no report), and interrogation transcript presence (present vs. not present) were manipulated. Regardless of coercion level or accuracy, police report presence led to more guilty verdicts. Consistent with prior studies of adult interrogations, results indicate that reading a police report significantly diminishes mock jurors’ capacity to critically analyze juvenile confessions.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Author dc:creator

• Andrews, Morgan

Contributors dc:contributor

• Warren, Amye
• Ferrier, David E.; Ross, David F.
• College of Arts and Sciences

• Jury -- Research
• Group decision making

Licence

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en

Language dc:language

English, eng

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.utc.edu/theses/586

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.utc.edu:theses-1743