Kids, Cops, and Confessions

Juveniles possess less maturity, intelligence, and
competence than adults, heightening their vulnerability in the justice system.
For this reason, states try juveniles in separate courts and use different
sentencing standards than for adults. Yet, when police bring kids in for
questioning, they use the same interrogation tactics they use for adults,
including trickery, deception, and lying to elicit confessions or to produce
incriminating evidence against the defendants.








In Kids, Cops, and Confessions, Barry Feld offers the
first report of what actually happens when police question juveniles. Drawing
on remarkable data, Feld analyzes interrogation tapes and transcripts, police
reports, juvenile court filings and sentences, and probation and sentencing
reports, describing in rich detail what actually happens in the interrogation
room. Contrasting routine interrogation and false confessions enables police,
lawyers, and judges to identify interrogations that require enhanced scrutiny,
to adopt policies to protect citizens, and to assure reliability and integrity
of the justice system. Feld has produced an invaluable look at how the justice
system really works.

Barry C. Feld is Centennial Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Minnesota. He is the author and editor of many books, including The Evolution of the Juvenile Court: Race, Politics, and the Criminalizing of Juvenile Justice (NYU Press, 2019), Kids, Cops, and Confessions: Inside the Interrogation Room (NYU Press, 2014), and Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court (Oxford University Press (1999).

The author's detailed, rare and invaluable look inside the concealed confines of the interrogation room provides a compelling impetus for change.

Feld has produced an invaluable exploration into how the criminal justice system really works. . . . A resource for researchers and professionals that want an insider perspective or conduct additional research studies on the interrogation of juveniles.

Charles Weisselberg,Shannon C. Turner Professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law:
Feld takes us on a fascinating journey into that most private of public placesthe precinct interrogation room. There, kids prove no match for cops. Feld shows how minors are especially vulnerable, and why the protections we afford to adults do not suffice for kids, particularly younger juveniles. Kids, Cops, and Confessions is a careful and important account of our system, chock full of insights.

Thomas Grisso,author of Evaluating Juveniles' Adjudicative Competence:
Feld offers a dispassionate inside view of a social event that is largely hiddenthe interrogation room encountered by juvenile suspects. The result challenges our stereotypes, exposing us to crime investigators at their best and worst, kids at their most naïve and savvy, and policies that were meant to protect juveniles but sometimes grease the wheels for interrogators. This book offers new hypotheses for further research, as well as realities that reformers must take into account when forging better laws, policies and practices for police interrogation of young people.

Reba Kennedy, San Antonio:
Investigatory questioning by law enforcement is understood to involve an unequal balance of power with an intrinsic opportunity for abuse. For this reason, Miranda warning rights and other constitutional protections exist in the United States. Nevertheless, Feld (law, Univ. of Minnesota; Juvenile Justice Administration in a Nutshell) warns in his latest book that these legal protections have failed miserably, particularly when juveniles are involved. Feld cautions that juvenile interrogations are ripe for inquisitorial abuse owing, first, to juveniles' incompetence to exercise their Miranda rights effectively; second, to police officers' skill in using psychological tools to gain a waiver; and third, to judicial inability to supervise interrogations as they happen. His research reveals that juvenile interrogation tactics and procedures have resulted in various injustices including the proliferation of false confessions. Feld also offers solutions, including the simple one of recording all custodial interrogations for possible review. Verdict: Recommended. Judges and attorneys as well as law enforcement agencies and juvenile advocates will find this book useful as they work toward the goal of fair treatment and justice for juveniles, both guilty and innocent.

Lisa S. Nored and Caitlin Carey:
Feld has done a masterful job of presenting the realities of the interrogation room to the reader. This work is important to scholars of all persuasions who seek to better understand the unique plight of juveniles faced with the inherently coercive circumstances involved in police questioning. The book is well-written and capably blends research-based observations with the perceptions of police and other legal actors. This combined perspective provides the reader with a unique appreciation of a system which often functions far from public view.

Patrick Webb:
A well written and concise account that contributes constitutional measures afforded to youth.

Daniel S. Medwed:
A rich blend of top-notch empirical scholarship and doctrinal analysis, Feld's book is a significant contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of police interrogationsand a major step forward in achieving justice for juveniles . . . an empirical tour de force.