Other empirical methods include naturalistic observations of live and videotaped police interrogations; archival records that enable comparisons of actual confessions and other evidence; self-report methods, used to estimate the incidence of various interrogation tactics and false confessions within various populations; and laboratory and field experiments that assess pre-interrogation judgments of truth and deception, the effects of certain interrogation tactics on true and false confessions, and the impact of confession evidence on others in the system. Your only opportunity for you to tell your story is right now. In a popular laboratory paradigm that urges innocent participants to confess to causing a computer crash, false confession rates varied with age: 78% among 12- to 13-year-olds, 72% among 15- to 16-year-olds, and 59% among young adults (Redlich & Goodman, 2003). Maximization tactics convey the interrogator’s certain belief that the suspect is guilty and that denials will fail. Persuaded false confessions occur when police interrogation tactics cause an innocent suspect to doubt his memory and he becomes temporarily persuaded that it is more likely than not that he committed the crime, despite having no memory of committing it. An analysis of the first 241 DNA exonerations tested whether confessions prompt additional evidentiary errors, by examining other contributing factors present in DNA exoneration cases containing a false confession (Kassin, Bogart, & Kerner, 2012). Innocent people are generally open, rather than strategic in their interactions with police (Hartwig, Granhag, Strömwall, & Vrij, 2005); they offer up alibis freely, without regard for the fact that police may view these with suspicion (Olson & Charman, 2012); and they become less physiologically aroused by the stress of interrogation (Guyll et al., 2013). The second benefit comes from providing an accurate factual record for judges and juries to assess the voluntariness and credibility of confessions presented in court. On the presumption of evidentiary independence: Can confessions corrupt eyewitness identifications? In a test of this hypothesis, some participants, but not others, were randomly trained in using Reid’s “behavioral symptoms.” All participants then watched videotaped interviews of mock suspects—some who committed mock crimes, others who did not. Hence, researchers have concluded that sleep deprivation strongly impairs human functioning (Harrison & Horne, 2000; Pilcher & Huffcutt, 1996). In the first of his classic obedience experiments, Milgram (1963) found that 65% of participants obeyed an experimenter’s commands to deliver increasingly painful electric shocks to a confederate—up to 450 V (for reviews, see Blass, 2004; Milgram, 1974). False confessions have figured in 24 percent of the approximately 289 convictions reversed by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project.Considering that DNA is … How, why do false confessions occur? to require recording of interrogations, Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern University Law School, The case for recording police interrogation, Snitching, lies, and computer crashes: An experimental test of secondary confessions, Pitfalls and opportunities in nonverbal and verbal lie detection, An empirical test of the behaviour analysis interview. In both sets of studies, innocent participants explained that the bluff implied future exoneration—which, paradoxically, made it easier to confess (Perillo & Kassin, 2011). One we called coerced-compliant false confessions. In short, police tend to prejudge guilt, with confidence, which is frequently in error (Meissner & Kassin, 2002). View or download all content the institution has subscribed to. One – there is a category of false confessions known as voluntary false confessions. Some people resist influence more than others when confronted by authorities pressing for a confession. Confessions are not, however, infallible. It is clear that expectations color an individual’s subsequent perceptions and behaviors in a self-perpetuating cycle (Nickerson, 1998). make suspect feel hopeless, make suspect feel confessing is the best thing to do. Yet, responses to the behavior-provoking questions did not significantly distinguish between truth tellers and liars (Vrij, Mann, & Fisher, 2006). Interrogation techniques often push the limits of what is fair and ethical. "Innocent suspects may still confess, but at least we'll have a record of it. Although he quickly came to his senses and retracted the confession, Tankleff was convicted and spent 18 years in prison until his conviction was vacated and he was set free (Firstman & Salpeter, 2008). Lean Library can solve it. Other types of research support these statistics. In this article, empirical research on the causes and correlates of false confessions … In the past two decades, hundreds of convicted prisoners have been exonerated by DNA and non-DNA evidence, revealing that police-induced false confessions are a leading cause of … Why would someone admit to something they didn’t do? False Confessions In many cases, innocent defendants make incriminating statements, deliver outright confessions, or plead guilty. An example of a false confession is where a person admits to a crime in order to divert the court’s attention from … Specifically, this approach is designed to overcome the resistance of suspects presumed guilty. They may also result from the mental incapacity of the accused person. Jurors believe interrogation tactics are not likely to elicit false confessions: Will expert witness testimony inform them otherwise? XMind is the most professional and popular mind mapping tool. False confessions are often done under the pressure of the interrogator and presenting indirect evidence. The research reviewed in this article compels proposals for reform designed to protect vulnerable suspect populations and to ban or limit the use of coercive interrogation practices. The second reason is that false confessions typically contain not only an admission of guilt but also numerous content cues commonly associated with truth telling. Although calculating a precise incidence rate is not possible, false confessions occur in different ways and for different reasons. False Confessions Happen While the notion that someone would confess to a crime he or she did not commit may seem counterintuitive to casual observers, the reality is that false confessions occur regularly. All of these temporary states may lead to mental confusion hence false confession. By continuing to browse Arguably, tragedy could be avoided if the resulting false confessions were detected by authorities and corrected. In a high-pressure version, the defendant was interrogated aggressively for a long period of time. In turn, this more aggressive style made the suspects sound defensive and led observers who later heard the tapes to judge them guilty, even when innocent (Kassin, Goldstein, & Savitsky, 2003; for replications, see Hill, Memon, & McGeorge, 2008; Narchet, Meissner, & Russano, 2011). "First, there are vulnerable groups, like juveniles and people with mental illnesses," he says. You’re absolutely right about the Central Park jogger case. In an experiment that demonstrated the point, some participants, but not others, committed a mock crime. Indeed, false confessions are thought to account for approximately 15–25% of wrongful convictions in the United States. For instance, an interrogator might pose a fake phone call to the interrogation room, telling the suspect that their DNA was found at a crime scene. In both situations, the authority figure uses deception to reframe the subject’s actions and makes a series of unwavering demands. It is therefore not surprising that false confessions tend to occur after long periods of time, suggesting that the suspect must have been persistent with their denials. In a marked departure from past practice, the U.S. Justice Department recently announced that the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies would also be required to videotape interrogations in their entirety (Schmidt, 2014). Similarly, no evidence supports the diagnostic value of the behavioral cues that investigators are trained to observe. Why False Confessions Occur with Children 02:14 Share this - copied Joshua Tepfer, Attorney at the Exoneration Project Shares his Views on Why False Confessions … The main motives given for having made the false confession were to protect somebody else (48%) and police pressure or escape from custody (52%). Observations of 182 live and videotaped interrogations at three California police departments revealed that detectives averaged 5.62 different techniques per interrogation, with Reid-like approaches particularly common (Leo, 1996). Interrogation and false confessions among adolescents in seven European countries: What background and psychological variables best discriminate between false confessors and non-false confessors? "Some people will succumb to the pressure." Contrary to the commonsense belief that people do not confess to crimes they did not commit, history exposes many such cases—not only in the United States but also elsewhere (see Kassin et al., 2010). Police will confuse the defendant making suggestions that they did it, and why they did it, using “what if” scenarios. Here we demonstrate that sleep deprivation increases the likelihood that a person will falsely confess to wrongdoing that never occurred. False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications A summary by Dr. Richard A. Leo (see his FRONTLINE interview) of empirical research on false confessions. Such tactics include making an accusation, interrupting denials, overriding objections, and citing evidence, real or manufactured, to shift the suspect’s mental state from confident to hopeless. This psychologist explains why people confess to crimes they didn’t commit By Douglas Starr Jun. These techniques are commonly used. People who are young, developmentally disabled, or mentally ill are particularly subject to falsely confessing as a result of this method. You're going to go to the electric chair. Horrific events like the Salem Witch Trials of 1692–93 illustrate how torture has been used for centuries to extract information, at all costs, from people suspected of wrongdoing. While numerous cases of false imprisonment continue to come to light, hopefully, these methods will undergo some changes. In recent years, DNA exoneration cases have shed light on the problem of false confessions and the wrongful convictions that result. However, humans are inherently social creatures, and the human need for affiliation, belonging, and social support, especially during times of stress can be a motivation to comply with the social pressure to confess. Two studies specifically evaluated the Reid technique of lie detection, and the results are not impressive. This was the primary recommendation in a recent White Paper: “Without equivocation, our most essential recommendation is to lift the veil of secrecy from the interrogation process in favor of the principle of transparency” (Kassin et al., 2010). Some do it because that’s the story their interrogators want to hear. Why is it that so many innocent people go to prison? The guilt-presumption that marks the start of interrogation thus provides fertile ground for the operation of cognitive and behavioral confirmation biases. The first problem concerns the empirical fact that confessions can corrupt other evidence from lay witnesses and experts alike. John Kogut, for example, not only This phenomenon has long been recognized (Munsterberg, 1908), although the extent of the problem was unclear (e.g., Kassin & Wrightsman, 1985; Miranda v. Arizona, 1966). Why do people make false confessions, what is the driving force behind them? 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