The Impact of Miranda on Individuals and the Law Enforcement Community - Essay Example

The entire literature on the impact of the Miranda Act on individuals and law enforcement personnel thus far originates from studies that were carried out during the early years of Miranda (Cassell & Fowles, 1998). Because the more enduring effect of a court resolution is more relevant to academics than its immediate impacts, as expressed by Leo (1996), it is astonishing that no academic has investigated the effect of the Miranda Act in almost three decades.

The Miranda Act has been the most contentious and the most condemned case of the Supreme Court in the United States criminal justice (Fridell, 2006). Even though nobody has methodically studied the continuing impacts of Miranda on collective awareness, court cases, or law enforcement methods and behavior, the subject matter of Miranda’s effect is still a root of contention among academics and practitioners (Leo, 1996). Despite the unending debate between liberal and conservative scholars of the Miranda Act, law enforcement personnel have effectively adjusted to the provision of Miranda of ‘pre-interrogation constitutional warnings’ (Leo, 1996, 628) in recent years.

A significant portion of the law enforcement community respects the ideals and logic of Miranda and does not challenge its legitimacy anymore. Law enforcement personnel, according to Cassell and Fowles (1998), like detectives and police officers, nowadays have also embraced the legitimacy of the Miranda Act and accepted its importance as a representation of police competence. Studies on the effect of the Miranda Act used various methodologies, such as interviews, secondary data analysis, and participant observation.

The common agreement of these studies is that after adapting at first to the new directives promulgated in the Miranda resolution, law enforcement abided by the rules, but not the essence, of the mandated fourfold notices, despite these general notices large numbers of criminal suspects habitually relinquish their constitutional rights (Cassell & Fowles, 1998); the directives of the Miranda Act have had merely a minor impact on the capability of the law enforcement community to effectively draw out confessions from the accused; and hence, the Miranda Act has not wielded a substantial influence either on the frequency of conviction or detainment of criminal suspects (Leo, 1996).

The common assumption of these investigations is not only that the Miranda Act has been unsuccessful in negatively affecting the capability of law enforcement personnel to prevent criminal activities, but also that the provision of general Miranda notices has been unsuccessful in attaining the objective or effect (Leo, 1996) initially envisaged by the Warren Court.