Studies show nearly all juveniles, as many as 90 %, waive their Miranda rights. Yet legal experts say children and teenagers don’t understand the consequences of doing so. Now, some states are working to fix that. In the last three years, at least four states — including California, Maryland, New Jersey and Washington — have passed laws banning police from interrogating children until that child has spoken to a lawyer, NPR reports. Illinois has introduced a bill broadening its protections for juveniles questioned by police, and other states – including New York and Minnesota – have introduced similar bills. The brain areas that govern impulsivity, self-regulation and decision-making aren’t fully developed until about the mid-twenties, says Hayley Cleary, an associate professor of criminal justice at Virginia Commonwealth University. “It is fundamentally unfair to interrogate them in the same way we do adults when they literally don’t have the same resources that fully grown people do,” she says.
In a room alone with police, children and teenagers are more likely than adults to falsely confess to a crime. They’re also more vulnerable to incriminating themselves or pleading guilty when a lawyer wouldn’t have advised it, says Marsha Levick, chief legal officer of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia. That can lead to harsher punishment, like more time in juvenile detention. Being incarcerated disrupts childhood. Kids who experience it are less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to be incarcerated as adults. “Currently the responsibility is on young people to assert those rights,” says Malaika Eban, executive director of the center. “But a lot of states have moved towards building the responsibility on the system." Eban, of the Legal Rights Center, says it’s not about young people getting off the hook for wrongdoing, but about whether they should be questioned alone by an adult with power.
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