Police chiefs’ and students’ attitudes about the Miranda warnings Brian K. Payne ⁎ , Victoria Time, Randy R. Gainey Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529, United Sates Abstract Several studies had concluded that the police subculture holds values and attitudes that are distinct from the rest of the population. Among these values is a focus on law and order. While researchers agree that police tend to hold different values, they disagree on the source of the attitudes. Some had argued that the attitudes reflected differences regarding who was recruited for law enforcement careers while others said that the differences reflected changes that occurred to individuals after becoming officers. This study examined whether police officers and students enrolled in criminal justice/sociology classes held similar or different attitudes towards the Miranda warnings. The findings suggested that in some ways, the two groups perceived the warnings in dramatically different ways, while in other ways their differences were simply a matter of degree. Implications are provided. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction Dozens of past studies tapping into students’ attitudes considered how students perceived the police. Among other things, these studies focused on attitudes about sexual assault reporting (Fisher, Daigle, Cullen, & Turner, 2003), attitudes towards women police officers (Austin & Hummer, 1999; Britz, 1997; Grant, 2000), issues related to minorities and policing (Kaminski, 1993), assessments of the police role (Crank, 1990), and ethical values (Bjerregaard & Lord, 2005; Hurst & Frank, 2000). While several studies examined how students perceived the police, fewer studies had compared the attitudes of the two groups. Research that compares police and student attitudes is useful in determining whether police attitudes stem from the police experience or something else. Most available research suggested police officer attitudes were tied to their experiences on the job. In support of this premise, Bennett and Greenstein (1975) found that students majoring in police science shared attitudes akin to those of students pursuing other majors, but their attitudes were different from those held by police officers. One study found that students’ perceptions about the police role changed after serving internships (Farmer, 1978). Another study found that citizens who participated in citizen police academies became more “pro-police” after participating in academy (Stone & Champeny, 2001). In a more recent study, Bjerregaard and Lord (2005) examined whether criminal justice students held ethical values similar to noncriminal justice majors and found that both groups essentially shared similar views. Based on their results, they argued that values and character- istics of the police subculture are more prone to arise from socialization and occupational opportunity than from values imported into the job. To be sure, not all studies have found dramatic diffe- rences between police officers and students. Lennings (1995) examined suicide risk among thirty police officers and eighty-eight students. Lennings found that the suicide risk for the groups was similar, suggesting that the stresses of policing did not contribute to emotions and attitudes promoting suicide. This study, however, found that police Journal of Criminal Justice 34 (2006) 653 – 660 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 757 683 3795; fax: +1 757 683 5634. E-mail address: bpayne@odu.edu (B.K. Payne). 0047-2352/$ - see front matter © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2006.09.018