False Confessions : Fear Of Being Alone And Social Susceptibility

While people find it hard to believe that anyone would confess to a crime he or she did not commit, there are people who end up making a false confession. In the Central Park Five case, the police managed to get the young boys to admit to the crime with the false promise that they would be allowed to go home if they confessed (Kassin, 2002). For Martin Tankleff, while in an

Correspondence regarding this paper should be addressed to Samantha Callahan, Danielle Patrick, Sara Roderick, and Kahla Stygar, Department of Psychology, Lindenwood University, 209 South Kingshighway, St. Charles, Mo, 63301

Wakefield, H. & Underwager, R. (2014). Coerced or Non-voluntary Confessions: IPT Library Resources. Retrieved October 19, 2017, from

Wrongful convictions are common in the court-system. In fact, wrongful convictions are not the rare events that you see or hear on televisions shows, but are very common. They stem from some sort of systematic defect that lead to wrongful convictions such as, eyewitness misidentification testimony, unvalidated or improper forensic science, false confessions and incriminating statements, DNA lab errors, false confessions, and informants (2014). Bringing awareness to all these systematic defects, which result in wrongful, is important because it will better adjust the system to avoid making the same mistakes with future cases. However, false confession is not a systematic defect. It does not occur because files were misplaced or a lab technician put one too many drops. False confessions occur because of some of psychological attempt to protect oneself and their family. Thus, the courts responsibility should be to reduce these false confessions.

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

Outcome – Guilty persons were more likely to confess than innocent persons and that the use of minimization and the offer of a deal increased the rate of both true and false confessions.

Our criminal justice system has over time implemented and changed the means of sentencing and punishment for crimes. In the United States plea deals are accountable for 90% of criminal cases. A plea deal is an agreement between prosecutor and defendant in whom the defendant accepts a guilty plea to a charge and in return receives some type of concession from the prosecution. As we have moved forward in the judicial system and now have the ability to look back on previous cases, plea deals have become more controversial. The majority of awareness in this area has been used to look deeper into false confessions, grazing right over the fact that false confessions are a large part plea deals. A controversy arose when many refused to believe that situational factors during interrogations and dispositional factors inherent to the suspects could result in false confessions. (Redlich, 2010)

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.

This paper contains expert information snitching, evidence on eye witness testimony, and proven study on false confessions. Appendix 1 shows the leading causes of wrongful convictions in United States. The first credited study and research analysis on wrongful convictions will demonstrate the seriousness of this problem and the need for a resolution. Various other authors and reports have been reviewed for the purpose of this research paper.

For a society that is greatly influenced by Crime Scene Investigation, Criminal Minds and Bones, a confession of the offender is seen as an ultimate checkmate of the case because it implies the guilt of the confessor. Thus, a confession, especially the ones with detailed account and perfect representation of emotions (Leo, 2008), outweighs the evidences of innocence and stirs the case against the accused (Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985). People believe that they are open-minded about the possibility of false confession but in reality, the public, law enforcers and justice officials have biases that often infer guilt to the suspect instead of investigating for the truth, which leads to wrongful conviction. According to Leo and Drizin (2004), false confession is the primary cause of law miscarriage (Leo and Drizzin, 2004). False confessors lived many years in jail before being exonerated while others remain imprisoned (Leo and Drizzin, 2004).

Cassell, Paul G. "Protecting The Innocent From False Confessions And Lost Confessions - And From Miranda." Journal Of Criminal Law & Criminology 88.2 (1998): 497-556. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Langeda Bontemps, Department of Psychology, Longwood University, Farmville, VA 23909. Email: langeda.bontemps@live.longwood.edu

This case study involves a girl named Claire who is a recent college freshman. She is very shy and experiences some issue with social anxiety. She never had many friends and felt that hanging out with her brother and sister was all the social interaction she needed. Claire and her parents thought her new college would be a great fit for her and a chance for her to overcome her fear. Unfortunately, she is having a hard time fitting in and interacting in a variety of social settings (Ashcraft, 2012).