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False Confessions

A false confession is obtained when a person admits or pleads guilty to a crime that he or she did not commit. Skeptics suggest that false confessions are statistically rare. However, when a confession is the primary evidence in a conviction, and the crime is re-examined with new forensic DNA evidence, 25 percent of the time the evidence indicates that the confessor could not have committed the crime.

False confessions have far-reaching consequences, tearing families apart, condemning the innocent to prison for crimes that they did not commit, and damaging the validity of the entire criminal judicial system. If the goals of legal systems are justice, convicting the guilty, and exonerating the innocent, the prevalence of false confessions is in direct contrast to those aims.

Types of False Confessions

There are three main types of false confessions: voluntary, compliant and internalized false confessions. A voluntary false confession is one in which the suspect freely confesses, without any police interference. Sometimes, these voluntary false confessions are made in order to divert attention from the actual guilty party, such as a friend or relative. Other times, voluntary false confessions are made in order to gain notoriety and attention from the confession, if the crime is making news headlines.

A compliant false confession is given in order to end a stressful situation or police interrogation. The suspect often believes that if oneconfesses to the crime, one can prove his or her innocence later. Manipulation and coercion by the interrogator often play a significant role in the attainment of a compliant false confession.

The last type of false confession is the internalized false confession. This type of false confession often requires the suspect to be easily impressionable, such as a child, an elderly person, a person in a heightened state of stress or grief, or someone who suffers from a psychological disorder or certain learning disabilities. In these cases, the interviewer implants the belief of guilt into the suspects' minds through sophisticated manipulation and persuasion in order to make the suspects at first question their memories and then come to accept the interrogators' version of events.

Reid Interrogation Technique

Interrogation techniques that presume guilt initially confront suspects with what seems like insurmountable evidence of their guilt, and are structured to not allow the suspects to directly deny the crimes. Confessions obtained through this type of interrogation have been shown to increase the likelihood of false confessions in susceptible individuals. The work of Elizabeth Loftus on false memories delves into greater detail about the ways in which people can construct false memories, without even realizing that their memories are false. This creation of false memories often leads to false confessions during stressful interrogation.

In the United States, the Reid method of interrogation is the most popular type of police interview technique. While it is a step forward over the use of physical force and food/sleep deprivation, this technique still has flaws, including its susceptibility to false confessions. Critics claim that the Reid method is less concerned with the truth and more concerned with simply obtaining a confession. The Reid method is a two-stage process: Stage one is a nonaccusatory behavioral-analysis interview with the suspect in order to gain trust and rapport, obtain general background information, and determine whether or not the suspect is lying about his or her defense. If the suspect is deemed to be lying, then the interviewer continues to a more aggressive stage two, which consists of a nine-step accusatory-style approach in order to gain a confession.

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