An interrogation is where the police ask questions with the purpose of getting information about a crime from a suspect or a witness. If a person is “in custody”, then the police must give Miranda warnings; i.e., “read you your rights” before they can interrogate. The point of reading people their rights is to make sure any statements/confessions (answers to the police questions) are voluntary. In other words, the person in custody is answering police questions because he wants to, not because he is being threatened, coerced or beaten up. However, the question of when a person is “in custody” is not always clear. “In custody” does not always mean “under arrest”. Another way to think about whether a person is in custody is whether their movement /freedom is restricted in any way. The main point to remember about interrogations is that you never have to answer the police officers’ questions, no matter what they say or how they try to convince you it will help you to cooperate.
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