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86 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 266 (1995-1996)
Inside the Interrogation Room

handle is hein.journals/jclc86 and id is 278 raw text is: 0091-4169/96/86020266 THE JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAw & CRIMINOLOGY Vol. 86, No. 2 Copyright © 1996 by Northwestern University, School of Law Printed in U.S.A. CRIMINAL LAW INSIDE THE INTERROGATION ROOM* RICHARD A. LEO** I. INTRODUCTION The gap problem-the gap between how law is written in the books and how it is actually practiced by legal actors in the social world-has been an ongoing concern to legal scholars at least since the advent of Legal Realism in the 1930s,' and has been the focus of countless empirical studies associated with the Law and Society Move- ment since the 1960s.2 Nevertheless, the gap in our knowledge be- tween legal ideals and empirical realities remains as wide as ever in the study of police interrogation. Recognizing the source of the gap problem in 1966, the Miranda Court wrote that interrogation still takes place in privacy. Privacy results in secrecy and this in turn results in a gap in our knowledge as to what in fact goes on in the interroga- tion room.3 Linking the gap problem to the secrecy of interrogation, the Miranda Court emphasized the absence of first-hand knowledge of actual police interrogation practices, issuing a clarion call for empiri- cal research in this area.4 Regrettably, this call has gone almost en- tirely unheeded in the three decades following the influential Miranda opinion. Although law libraries are overflowing with doctrinal analy- * I thank the following individuals for offering helpful comments, criticisms, and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper: Mark Cooney, David T. Johnson, Richard Lempert, Gary Marx, Fred Pampel, Tom Scanlon, Lindsey Simon, Jerome Skolnick, Tom Tyler, Eric Wunsch, and Frank Zimring. ** Assistant Professor of Sociology and Adjoint Professor of Law, University of Colo- rado, Boulder. BA., University of California, Berkeley, 1985; MA, University of Chicago, 1989; J.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1994; Ph.D., University of California, Berke- ley, 1994. 1 AMERICAN LEGAL REALISM (William W. Fisher III et al. eds., 1993). 2 LAw AND SocIETY READINGS ON THE SocIAL STUDY OF LAW (Stewart Macaulay et al. eds., 3d ed. 1995). This edited volume excerpts numerous studies that illustrate the gap between how law is portrayed on the books and how it actually works in practice. 3 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 448 (1966). 4 Id. at 448-58.

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