Pg. Cassell et R. Fowles, HANDCUFFING THE COPS - A 30-YEAR PERSPECTIVE ON MIRANDAS HARMFUL EFFECTS ON LAW-ENFORCEMENT, Stanford law review, 50(4), 1998, pp. 1055-1145
After the Supreme Court's 1966 decision irt Miranda v. Arizona, critic
s charged that it would ''handcuff the cops.'' In this article, Profes
sors Cassell and Fowles find this claim to be supported by FBI data on
crime clearance rates. National crime clearance rates fell precipitou
sly in the two years immediately after Miranda and have remained at lo
wer levels in the decades since. Multiple regression analysis reveals
that other possibly confounding factors-such as the rising crime rate
and baby boom children reaching crime prone-years in the 1960s-do not
account for much of the post-Miranda decline in clearance rates. Rathe
r, the cause of the decline was most likely the Supreme Court's broad
new restrictions on police questioning. The authors conclude that Mira
nda has in fact ''handcuffed'' the police and that society should begi
n to explore ways of loosening these shackles.