Why suspects stay: Most people don’t feel free to leave during police interrogation, VCU study shows

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Most people do not feel free to leave a police interrogation room after only three minutes of questioning, a recently published study from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) shows.

According to a release from VCU, the study was conducted using a virtual reality project called the Virtual Interrogation Subjective Experience (VISE). Participants experienced a 30-minute simulated homicide interrogation that had been previously recorded with a 360-degree camera.

A suspect's statements are only admissible if they are legally in custody -- and have been read their Miranda rights -- before questioning. Any incriminating statements made by a suspect who has not been read their rights typically cannot be used in court.

"But it can be difficult to determine if a suspect is formally in custody, especially if they have not been formally arrested," the release from VCU explains. "Courts rely on whether a 'reasonable person' in the suspect’s position would feel free to leave the interrogation room, but that standard is hard to define. Police and prosecutors may argue that leaving the door open, offering food or telling the suspect they are free to go are enough to make the suspect feel free to leave -- a claim that research increasingly disputes."

According to the VCU study, suspects rarely leave during voluntary interrogations -- even if they are explicitly told they are free to do so -- most likely because of power disparities and fear of negative consequences.

The VISE video was based on a real police interrogation and researchers broke it down into three segments:

• The first three minutes were a rapport-building section.
• The next 16 minutes were a stress-inducing "maximization" section.
• The final 11 minutes were a "minimization" section -- in which the officer used less aggressive tactics, including explanations and justifications.

The study included 168 psychologically healthy participants aged 18 to 25 who experienced sitting next to the suspect during the VISE video.

The results showed that more than half of the participants believed the suspect -- whose custody status was not defined -- was not free to leave the interrogation after just three minutes of questioning. By the end of the virtual interrogation, fewer than 20% of participants thought the suspect was allowed to leave the room. Ninety percent of the participants believed that the suspect would not have felt free to leave.

“Our research shows that simply being in the interrogation room creates a feeling of a lack of perceived autonomy,” said lead researcher Hayley Cleary, a professor of criminal justice.

The study also found that, while the effect was consistent across most demographics, two groups were especially likely to believe the suspect was not free to leave: people with educational difficulties and Black participants who reported feeling vulnerable to racial stereotyping by police.

“The courts have to make really difficult decisions about what they believe a suspect was thinking or feeling during an interrogation,” Cleary said. “And research increasingly suggests that judges and juries systematically overestimate how free to leave a suspect actually felt at the time.”