How law enforcement officers describe the experience of interrogating juvenile suspects: A qualitative generic study

Juvenile interrogation is an emerging topic in the social psychology literature which is brimming with studies on false confessions and wrongful convictions as a result of juvenile interrogations. However, little is actually known about the practice of juvenile interrogation. A review of the existing literature discovered that only a few survey studies have sought the perspective from law enforcement officers on the issue of interrogating juvenile suspects. Still, the voice of law enforcement officers cannot be genuinely sought and heard through survey studies. Consequently, this qualitative generic study identified a gap in the extant literature and qualitatively explored law enforcement officers' perspectives of juvenile interrogation. This study captured rich contextual data from in-depth interviews with12 law enforcement officers who had a minimum of 2.5 years and an average of 8.5 years of juvenile interrogation experience. Using the six phases of data analysis of Braun and Clarke (2006), the 12 data sets generated six themes. Rapport building emerged as officers shared their experience of building relationships with juvenile suspects to gain cooperation and get information. The officers reported having to understand developmental differences between adults and adolescents; they also identified frustrations and were challenged on how to control their emotions. They were passionate about their work as they were guided by compassion and empathy, and they discussed their beliefs about false confessions. The officers overwhelmingly expressed a need for more specific training to handle juvenile suspects with respect to interrogation versus their current training which emphasized procedure and process.