Causes Of False Confessions

The first reason is that people trust confession is because of self-serving behavior and taking people at their face value (Kassin, 2005). The second reason is that detecting deception is a learned skill not a normal one that most people have. The third and final reason that people trust confession is that will being interrogated people can be coached what to say that aligns with the crime or they may overhear parts about the crime. Because of the amount of false confessions and the trust people put in believing them there needs to be some reform made in interrogation procedures. Three areas in particular need to be looked at and the first is the length of time for the interrogation. Many factors play a role in a person

Studying collage students, or any other narrowed group, does not represent the majority of individuals that could be in the situation of a false confession. The consequences of a confession of a crime can lead to an investigation to close, leaving the "perpetrator" with higher charges. These real life consequences can also discredit any real evidence on a case, letting the real perpetrator off. With this, if an individual decides to retract their false confession, a jury is more likely to convict them because they are seen as untrustworthy (Kassin et al., 2010). These consequences are unlikely to be taken into consideration with experimental research on false

“It is difficult to prove a causal relationship between permissible investigative and interrogatory deception and testimonial deception.  Police freely admit to deceiving suspects and defendants.  They do not admit to perjury, much less to the rationalization of perjury.  There is evidence, however of the acceptability of perjury as a means to the end of conviction.  The evidence is limited and fragmentary and is certainly not dispositive” (Skolnick, 1982).

Many of today’s interrogation models being utilized in police investigations have an impact on false confessions. The model that has been in the public eye recently is the social psychological process model of interrogation known as the “The Reid Technique.” There are two alternatives used by the police today to replace the Reid Technique, one is the PEACE Model and the other is Cognitive Interviewing. These methods are not interrogation techniques like Reid but interview processes.

Lannin, Kyle Scherr, and Sarah Greathouse. Because false confessions can obscure the serving of justice in a trial, the experiment in this article aimed to examine the physiologic stress responses accompanying interrogation within guilty and innocent suspects. By “interrogating the phenomenology of innocence with theoretical conceptualizations of stress, we hypothesized that innocent suspects experience less stress than guilty suspects in response to accusation and interrogation. (Guyll et al.)” This research examined if resisting confession pressure is associated with stress-related physiologic activity and if innocence was associated with decreased stress-related activity. Findings later proved these hypotheses to be true. Guyll et al. states that “the innocent exhibited less physiologic reactivity to being accused and interrogated than the guilty, thereby suggesting that they perceived less threat and potential harm in the situation. Evidence is provided showing that stress emerges from the perception of being threatened and one may be unable to cope with

Determining a false confession proves difficult due to the multitude of dimensions involved. According to Kassin and Wrightsman’s (1985) survey of the literature, there are three main types of false confessions—voluntary, coerced-compliant, and coerced-internalized. Unlike coerced false confessions, voluntary false confessions arise as a result of someone willingly turning themselves into the police with an account of their crime (McCann, 1998). Voluntary false confessions can result from multiple motives, including an internalized need for punishment or to save someone else’s face. In contrast, coerced false confessions directly result from police interrogations. While coerced-compliant confessions are made to avoid interrogation, escape the stressful situation, or achieve some other reward, coerced-internalized confessions emerge when a suspects begins to

When questioning witnesses of a crime, detectives may choose a specific technique; one technique is the Reid Technique. The Reid Technique is a multi-step questioning method that pressures the witnesses or the accused to admit to the crime. It is used in North America. According to Professor Brent Snook, a psychologist at the Memorial University in Newfoundland, the Reid Technique is “Starsky and Hutch”, where two hot head detectives “beat up” their suspects to encourage them confess (http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/25/youre-guilty-now-confess-false-admissions-put-polices-favourite-interrogation-tactic-under-scrutiny/). This paper will examine the steps of the Reid Technique, as well as reveal substantial evidence that this technique should be banned. This technique has led to false confessions. Not only does this mean that someone has been punished that isn’t guilty, but it also means the real criminal has not been found and punished. The arguments against the use of this technique are the following:

Police interrogate suspects on a daily basis, but how can they tell if the confession is real? We have all heard, at one time or another of someone confessing to a crime they didn’t commit. Then your next thought is “I would never confess to something I didn’t do”. The only way you can be a 100% sure of that is if you have been through an interrogation before. This paper is going to define “confession” and tell how an innocent person will confesses to a crime they didn’t commit. This paper will also show the history of interrogations.

“It was me. I did it. I’m guilty.” It’s what every interrogator is waiting for and hoping to hear. Any variation will do the job, as either is the heart of each and every confession. The main purpose of an interrogation is to elicit the truth from a suspect that they believe has lied or is guilty of the crime they’re investigating. They are looking for a confession. Confessions are the most damaging and influential piece of evidence of the suspect’s guilt that the state can use against a defendant (Leo, 2009). It makes sense. People instinctively trust confessions. After all, why would someone confess to a crime they did not commit? The mere idea that someone would admit to committing a crime they did not do boggles the mind simply because it just does not seem rational. However, the fact remains that false confessions do happen, and for a multitude of different reasons. This paper will begin with an examination of false confessions in general, then focus on the different types of false confessions, including what leads to their occurrence, and will conclude by discussing ways in which false confessions could be avoided.

In recent years, there have been multiple high-profile cases of people being exonerated, often by DNA testing, after giving a false confession to a crime they did not commit. People who often fall into this trap are juveniles or those with a diminished mental capacity (Redlich, 2009). DNA testing has helped many innocent people that gave false confessions be free again. This trend brings up the question of how were they able to give a false confession.

Once introduced as evidence, a confession causes a negative chain reaction in the justice system and law enforcers and justice officials often include their biases in their judgment, which leads to justice miscarriage. The process of false confession starts with the law enforcement officials (Leo & Davis, 2011). According to Kassin, Meissner, and ReNorwick (2005), investigators have a high confidence in knowing a true confession but their accuracy is the same as that of the public. The investigators do not see deception but rather they infer

All the suspects except Salaam made video taped confessions that were later retracted. The young suspects claimed that they had been intimidated or coerced by the police into making a false confession. Interestingly, while the actual confessions were videotaped, the hours of interrogation that led up to the confessions were not. However, we do know that police did use a number of misleading methods during the interrogation. For instance, one of the boys only made his confession after police had informed him that they had his fingerprints on the victims clothing, which was obviously not true.

The Social Psychology of False Confessions: Compliance, Internalization, and Confabulation is a study conducted by Saul M. Kassin and Katherine L. Kichel of Williams College. This experiment explores social various influences and the impact they have on confessions. As a fundamental right in the United States, people are given several rights and if broken, various punishments can be implemented. Criminal confessions are usually self-incriminating or coerced, yet these can easily be swayed by other factors. Social influence can directly affect suspects and can potentially cause people to confess to crimes they did not commit.

In a two-phase study, Kassin, Goldstein, & Savitsky (2003) examined How the presumption of guilt had shaped the conduct of the student interrogators, the suspects they were interrogating, and the

In interviewing the offender, police gather information on the tape recorded to reduce the chances of inappropriate or unethical interview to occur. However in 1980 the observation study carried out by Irving who observed 60 police interviews and found them to be characterised by manipulation. In those 60 interviews, they pointed out that denying is futile, and they pretended to have evidence against the suspect than the case was. Police also minimised the seriousness of the offence to facilitate the suspect to confess. Moreover, they worked on the offenders’ self- teem and convinced the suspects that it is their best interests to confess their crime. This study indicated that some people can be found guilty of the crime they did not commit, simply because of police intimidation, being convinced to what they didn’t commit and thinking to confess will get them out of the polices hand.