Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 32(1), Feb 2026, 1-17; doi:10.1037/law0000466
In Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the U.S. Supreme Court instilled the now-commonplace practice of advising custodial suspects of their rights to silence and counsel. In so doing, the Court sought to balance the interests of interrogators in questioning suspects against suspects’ right to exercise their constitutional protections. Since its inception, social scientists and legal scholars have questioned Miranda’s efficacy, often noting the infrequency with which suspects invoke this purported safeguard. The current study systematically reviewed and meta-analyzed the research literature on Miranda waivers while considering the effects of situational and suspect factors. We collected 32 waiver estimates originating from 29 studies (N = 6,204) that we located by searching PsycINFO, PsycArticles, Criminal Justice Abstracts, HeinOnline, and Dissertations and Theses Global. Our review validated existing concerns by showing that suspects more often waived (versus invoked) Miranda, that postwaiver invocations rarely occured, and that waiving posed a significant self-incrimination risk. Findings further indicated that behavioral paradigms were more likely than vignette paradigms to produce results that were consistent with field research. Factors such as one’s innocence, juvenile status, and nonfelony record significantly increased the odds of waiving, while administration tactics, arrest history, crime type of present offense, and suspect gender and race/ethnicity appeared to have exerted no effect. We highlight limitations of the current review, areas requiring further empirical attention, as well as theoretical and practical implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)