March 30, 2000

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Kiddies, confess for the nice officer

Mar. 30, 2000

Many of today’s youth, hardened by early exposure to violent video games, rap music, and Road Runner cartoons, lack a moral compass and are capable of committing blood-curdling assaults. Right?

Well, maybe. But the CLEVELAND FREE TIMES reports that some juveniles have confessed to serious crimes, including murder, only after being subjected to interrogation techniques that psychologists say shouldn’t be used on children. When grilling a suspect, police will lie about evidence they may have found, threaten, ask leading questions, and assure the suspect that a confession is the only way out. That may be the best way to get to the truth when the suspect is an adult who understands the consequences of his or her actions, but with children, say some experts, it’s a different story.

“That kind of leading questioning is absolutely the worst way to get truthful information from children,” says professor and supervising attorney Steven Drizin. One child confessed to a crime, his lawyer says, because he was anxious not to miss a birthday party.

Read the CLEVELAND FREE TIMES story here.

—PS

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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