Psychology Of Confessions: Does Innocent Put Innocents At Risk?

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

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

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

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.

False confessions are the third-most?? common reason for exonerations and pardons (ref??) and fall into three categories: voluntary, coerced-compliant, and coerced-internalized. The

In Stephanie Ericsson’s essay, “The Ways We Lie”, she discusses the different circumstances in which people lie and describes the types of lies that are commonly used. The author argues that some lies aren’t very severe, and often times are necessary, whereas others can prove to be harmful in the long run and can exact harsh consequences. ( 315 ) Ericsson uses examples in which these lies are presented such as with business acquaintances, politicians or friends and even a priest who breaks ethical code. Ericsson poses the question that if she decided not to lie, if she would be less tolerant of lies told to her. (322) So why do we lie and allow people to lie to us? Does society encourage us to lie or is it

Many people admitted things they have not even done or accused their neighbors and friends in order to exonerate themselves and to save their lives.

The participants of this study would give a true confession and a false confession. They would orally record and write it down. Then they would study both confessions to see if they could find remorse displayed in the confession. The result were as follows, “Results showed that the proportion of remorseful words that participants produced was significantly higher in their true compared with their false confessions, in both oral and written confession modalities. Furthermore, an acoustic analysis of oral confessions revealed that participants’ remorseful utterances were significantly louder in their true compared with their false confessions” (Villar 255). This study has given use a clue on what we can look for in confessions to see if they have given a true or false confession.

There are several situational risk factors and dispositional vulnerabilities that contribute to the false confessions that were discussed in the video. Some of those factors are: an individual’s personality specifically compliance, youth, and the

People know that false confessions are possible, however, most do not understand the severity. 66% of people said that if a person signed a confession, they were most likely guilty (Henkel, Coffman, & Dailey, 2008). Only 11% disagreed that a person might confess to a crime they did not commit. Furthermore, only 42% of participants said that the police might lie about the police having evidence. Henkel, Coffman, and Dailey report an overwhelming majority of the participants claimed that they would never confess during an interrogation.

Too often in the legal system we have confessions that were forced out of the accused, and later on it is revealed that the confession isn’t even valid. They had ideas (false memories) planted in their head which led them to believe that they could have easily committed the crime. They could have been on the other side of the country when this crime happened, but our minds will sometimes still convince us otherwise. Meanwhile, people are being in jail for a crime they did not commit or the wrong person is identified as the

One of the earliest recorded instances of a false confessions was the confession of Robert Hubert in 1666 after the Great London Fire. The London fire destroyed thousands of houses, businesses, 87 churches, and killed tens of thousands of people. And the man who confessed to starting it? A disabled man in a wheelchair who wasn't even in London on the day that it started. It is speculated that Robert Hubert, after slight suspicion on behalf of the king, was interrogated or even tortured for a confession. According to Rob Jones of History of Forensic Psychology, “Despite the many obvious flaws and impossibilities in Hubert's confession, a scapegoat was needed” (Jones 1). “Only around the 1980’s did psychologists and other social scientists begin to truly investigate the phenomena of the false

To start, when getting a confession from a suspect, it is more prioritized to get the confession rather than accurate information and the truth. A technique called the Reid Technique, which is an accusatory interrogation, makes someone essentially believe they committed a crime and can force them to confess to a crime they didn't do. With this technique, 80% of the time they get a confession, but the outcome that the confession was the truth is not very high (Loevy). Loevy & Loevy talks about the comparison between the Reid technique and techniques

When someone confesses to a crime, people generally have no doubt that the person committed the crime because anyone would have a hart time understanding why someone would confess to a crime they did not commit. Once someone confesses to a crime, it is hard for them to prove their own innocence. Even if that person has a strong alibi, they may still have trouble proving their innocence because some of the alibi witnesses may choose to withdraw their statement. There are many guesses and reasons as to why a witness may withdraw their alibi from a case. One reason is that the witness could have been persuaded or threatened not to waist their time helping out the person who already confessed. The second reason is that the witness did not want