In law, a confession is a statement in an admission of guilt accompanied by a narrative account of the crime. Typically induced during police interrogations, confession evidence is common within the criminal justice system, is persuasive, and is highly incriminating in court—even if it was wrongfully obtained or coerced and later recanted. However, confessions are not infallible. Over the years, many innocent people have been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned after confessing to crimes that they did not commit. In 2017, the Innocence Project estimated that approximately 25% of all DNA exonerations involved a false confession.

Social, clinical, cognitive, and developmental psychologists, as well as other social scientists, have used a range of research methodologies in the empirical study of confessions. This research includes the study of ...

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