Developmental Science, Police Interrogations, and Adolescent False Confessions
Dr. Cleary’s scholarship applies developmental psychological theory and research to the empirical study of police interrogation. She has written broadly about the practice of interviewing and interrogation of young people, as well as specific constructs including trauma, race/ethnicity, legal socialization, and youths’ legal and practical knowledge of interrogation rights and procedures.
The role of parents in
youth interrogations
This line of research examines parents’ knowledge and attitudes about youths’ interrogation rights and their advisements to youth about waiving Miranda rights. It also highlights potential problems with requiring parental involvement in custodial interrogations of youth.
Interviewing and interrogation processes and outcomes
These works explore how police interrogations function in criminal investigations. Observations of videorecorded youth interrogations document interrogation procedures and Miranda delivery and waiver. Research with law enforcement officers illuminates how police are trained to conduct interrogations and how they question adolescent suspects. Studies with detained adults convey interviewees’ perspectives, including the importance of rapport-based techniques and the role of context in confession decision making.
Juvenile justice policy
and practice
This line of work examines youth in correctional facilities from both correctional staff and systems perspectives. It includes a series of mixed method studies examining a therapeutic correctional approach to managing youth in secure confinement. These studies report benefits and challenges of implementing therapeutic correctional models, staff and youth resident perceptions of model components, and correctional staff’s treatment orientation.
Juvenile sex offender registration policy and adolescent sexual offending
This research program includes both theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding youths’ (lack of) knowledge about juvenile sex offender registration laws and their illegal sexual behaviors. A project funded by the National Science Foundation with co-PI Dr. Cynthia Najdowski examines competing developmental and criminological theories for explaining youths’ engagement in, and desistance from, sexual offending.