False Confessions Research Paper

In the US, police often use the Reid Technique during interrogations. This technique was designed to elicit confessions from suspects. However, this technique can also lead to false confessions. One such case was the case of Michael Crowe, who was accused of murdering his sister. Michael, who was 14 at the time, was questioned by investigators until he eventually confessed to the murder, which he did not commit.

“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.

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.

A different viewpoint might be to get the suspect talking and keep him or her talking. The problem arises when an officer sits down with a suspect in an attempt to gain the truth or a confession; however, the suspect refuses to cooperate.

In coercive interrogation, the arrest officers may use physical evidence to force the defendant to admit to a crime that he or she did not commit. The case given in the study, the officers, use psychological coercion to make the suspect believe that he actually committed the crime. Through the use of evidence that does not exist such as the presence of an eyewitness who saw the accused commit the crimes, the presence of fingerprints in the crime site, as well as DNA test from the crime zone, makes the suspect to believe that he must have blacked out. Considering that he does not remember how and when he committed the crime, it is easy for him to give false confession after hours and hours of isolation and interrogation. Despite the fact that interrogation is an effective way to obtain information, it is prone to errors such as false confession after suspects are coerced mentally, psychologically and

In policing there are many ways of interrogating a suspect. There is one method that is controversial to use and that is called the Reid technique. Some people like this technique while others believe that using this technique is wrong and un-just. In my words, the Reid technique means using a series of questions which guilt the person into confessing that your want.

My admiration for the professors who have taught me throughout my college career and my interest in experimental psychology has solidified my decision to further my education by earning a master’s degree in experimental psychology and earning a Ph.D. to be able to teach and research at the collegiate level.

III.) Persuaded False Confessions are by far the most dynamic and interesting type of confessions.

In working with the Narcotics team, there are many practices that and strategies that prove to be successful in the arrest of drug dealers. A confession is the most trusted piece of evidence a prosecutor can present (Meissner, Redich, Bhatt, & Brandon, 2012). While trying to get an informant to confess, the officers try to get the informant to build up a series of false explanations, and the more the person lies, the more he has to remember. A confession also explains inconsistences in evidence. One of the most successful tactics is the use of interrogation (Meissner et al., 2012). The undisclosed deal involves different types of practices depending on the officer and the informant. There are several different interrogation tactics used

One of the best training programs to implement into the police department is the Reid interrogation techniques. Interrogation and interviewing techniques became popular in 1947 by John E. Reid and Associates. Joseph P. Buckley stated that “The Reid Technique of Interviewing and Interrogation is now the most widely used approach to question subjects in the world (Buckley P. J., 2000).” There three- parts to the Reid process for solving a crime. The first stage that should be taking is to collect and analyze relative information from the crime scene thing that offers insight to the possible suspect and determine the direction an investigation should take. The second stage of the process interviewing people of interest using Behavior Analysis Interview (BAI) (Buckley P. J., 2000). The Behavior Analysis Interview is a non-accusatory process that allows detectives to interview a suspect using a question and answer procedure to provoke a suspect to show non- verbal truthfulness or deception. The third stage, if the offender has not admitted to the crime an accusatory interrogation is administered (Leave no marks, 2007). The Reid interrogation technique is believed to be a fail proof technique ,however, there are some reservations against using this technique on juvenile offenders (Constitutional Law(n.d). Implementing the Reid technique into the police departments learning curriculum will truly

Over the years, history has shown that innocent people have provided false confessions and been convicted of crimes after being subjected to the use of the aforementioned interrogation techniques. As a result, interrogation methods are being questioned (Kassin et al., 2010). In the extraordinary 1932 case of Brown v. Mississippi, “three Black tenant farmers confessed to murder after they were brutally whipped with a steel-studded leather belt--beatings that would continue, the men were told, unless they confessed,” (Kassin, 1997, p. 225). The well-publicized case of the Central Park Five, a group of young men who were convicted and sentenced to extensive prison terms for the beating and rape of a woman New York City’s Central Park, is another example. Controversy arose when, years after the crime was committed and the men were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms, another man came forward and confessed to the crime, forcing the court to re-examine the original convictions. This investigation determined that the suspects were coerced into providing false confessions and they were subsequently released, as a result of People v. Wise (2002).

Saint Augustine’s book Confessions talks about how increasing your knowledge through reading leads you through a “conversion” in which you begin to recall things and their relevance through memory. Socrates stresses the concept of increasing knowledge as a way to grow. Socrates also was the one who wanted to have a “field day” teaching Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine uses his life to display to us the way one’s quest for God should be like. He believed that one must begin their journey by first reading about God through books such as the Bible. Once one believes in God, they will have gone through a conversion in which their memory allows them to remember their readings on God and apply them in their lives. We will be analyzing the