Law and Human Behavior, Vol 49(5), Oct 2025, 411-425; doi:10.1037/lhb0000627
Objective: Adolescents have substantial difficulty meaningfully understanding and appreciating their Miranda rights, which raises questions about the validity of their waiver decisions. Moreover, most Miranda warnings are long, are written at advanced reading levels, and contain complex sentence structure and vocabulary, which hinders comprehension. In response, several jurisdictions have begun to use developmentally informed Miranda warnings for youths, but in the absence of empirical evidence to suggest that this improves youths’ ability to make informed Miranda waiver decisions. Thus, the current research study explored (a) whether simplified Miranda warnings increased youths’ comprehension of their rights and (b) whether Miranda comprehension was related to youths’ anticipated waiver decision and how this relationship may be impacted by simplified Miranda warnings. Hypotheses: This study was exploratory and therefore did not have hypotheses. However, it was expected that simplified Miranda warnings would not increase youths’ comprehension of their rights. Method: Eighty-two youths between 13 and 17 years old (Mage = 15.49 years; 50.0% identified as girls; 32.9% identified as Black/African American) were presented with a vignette in which they imagined themselves in a police interrogation and answered questions about hypothetical Miranda waiver decisions when innocent and when guilty of the offense. They then completed measures of Miranda comprehension and sociodemographic characteristics. During measures of Miranda comprehension, half of the participants were presented with original warnings and half were presented with a simplified version. Results: The Miranda warning version was not significantly related to Miranda comprehension. Furthermore, the Miranda warning version and Miranda comprehension did not predict anticipated Miranda waiver decisions when innocent or when guilty of the offense. Conclusions: Results indicate that a developmentally informed version of Miranda warnings did not significantly increase youths’ comprehension of their rights, and it may not protect youths from making uninformed waiver decisions. Therefore, policymakers should consider alternative reforms, such as providing lawyers to all youths. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)