What is it about?
Remaining silent is a right guaranteed to individuals suspected of crime in both the U.S. and Canada. Yet, across three studies, we found that lay people may draw negative impressions about a suspect based solely on the decision they make to invoke or waive their right to silence during interactions with police.
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Why is it important?
Our studies add to a small body of research empirically demonstrating that remaining silent during interactions with the police can cause negative judgments about a suspect, which in turn can lead to increased perceptions of guilt. This means that suspects could unfairly suffer consequences for invoking rights guaranteed to them as an effort to protect citizens from potentially coercive criminal investigations. This is important as it raises questions about the downstream consequences of these negative perceptions: could they impact the course of an investigation or a jury’s verdict? They also raise questions about how we might reform suspect rights and/or interrogation practices to avoid attaching a cost to remaining silent.
Perspectives
This article was an effort of perseverance as data collection started way back in 2016. We felt it important to apply science to the “common sense” notion that someone refusing to talk to the police must be hiding something. Working with a team of researchers who are passionate about these ideas and genuinely enjoy working with each other also helps!
Mary Catlin
University of Mississippi
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Adverse inferences: The impact of suspect silence on lay perceptions., Law and Human Behavior, December 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/lhb0000639.
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