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Instrumental Voluntary False Confessions

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Instrumental voluntary false confessions are ones in which an individual comes forward on his/her behalf and confesses to the crime. There is minimal to no pressure from the police because the person usually confesses right away (Schwartz, 2016, p. 36). One reason an individual might voluntarily confess would be because the individual wants the possible fame that could come out of confessing to a big case (Pollack, 2017). Whatever the reason may be, the person falsely comes forward voluntarily. An example of a confession such as this is John Mark Karr’s case. Karr repeatedly confessed to raping and killing JonBenet Ramsey, a 6-year old girl. Karr was arrested; however, it was later proven that his story of the incident didn’t match the autopsy of the child (Ricardi & Simon, 2006). It was later determined that Karr confessed for the fame (Pollack, 2017). Thus, his confession was voluntary false. Voluntary false confessions are probably the easiest confessions for police officers because they don’t have to coerce or threat the confession out of the suspect. Another type of false confession is instrumental-coerced false confessions. This is where a suspect has been interrogated for hours upon hours and confess as a way to escape the mania that takes place in the interrogation room (Schwartz, 2016, p. 37). The confession comes out of the pressure the police officers place on the suspect. An example of this type of confession would be the Central Park Jogger case. In 1989, five
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