A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interrogation techniques. When some degree of coercion is involved, studies have found that subjects with low intelligence or with mental disorders are more likely to make such confessions. Young people are particularly vulnerable to confessing, especially when stressed, tired, or traumatized, and have a significantly higher rate of false confessions than adults. Hundreds of innocent people have been convicted, imprisoned, and sometimes sentenced to death after confessing to crimes they did not commitbut years later, have been exonerated. It was not until several shocking false confession cases were publicized in the late 1980s, combined with the introduction of DNA evidence, that the extent of wrongful convictions began to emergeand how often false confessions played a role in these.
Although most false confessions are coerced, some are voluntary. While coerced confessions have long been considered too unreliable to produce valid convictions, more sophisticated psychological interrogation methods may also produce false confessions.
Types False confessions can be categorized into three general types, as outlined by American Saul Kassin in an article for Current Directions in Psychological Science:
Voluntary false confessions These confessions are given freely, without police prompting. Sometimes people incriminate themselves to divert attention from the actual person who committed the crime. For instance, a parent might confess to save their child from jail. Alternatively, people sometimes confess to a notorious crime because of the attention they receive from such a confession. About 250 people confessed to the 1932 kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby which received headlines around the world. Approximately 500 people confessed to the murder of Elizabeth Short (known as the "Black Dahlia") in 1947 which also received enormous media attention—some of those who confessed were not even born when she died.
A more recent example of a false voluntary confession occurred in 2006, when John Mark Karr confessed to the murder of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey in the United States. Karr had become obsessed with every detail of the murder and, ten years after her death, he was extradited from Thailand based on his confession. But his account did not match details of the case, and his DNA did not match that found at the crime scene. His wife and brother also said he was home in another state at the time of the murder, and had never been to Colorado, where the murder occurred. His confession was so clearly false that prosecutors never charged him with the crime.
Coerced compliant confessions These confessions are the result of coercive interrogation techniques used by the police. Suspects may be interviewed for hours on end, sometimes without a lawyer or family member present. Even when the suspect is innocent, this creates stress and eventually leads to mental exhaustion. Sometimes, police offer inducements to suspects, telling them they will be treated more leniently if they confess. Material rewards such as coffee or the cessation of the interrogation are used to the same effect. Suspects may be told they will feel better by confessing, thereby getting the truth out in the open. After enduring this pressure, often for hours on end, vulnerable suspects may confess just to bring the process to an end.
The Reid technique codifies these strategies and is still used by many police forces in the United States. People may also confess to a crime they did not commit as a form of plea bargaining in order to avoid the risk of a harsher sentence after trial. Teenagers and young adults, individuals with mental health problems or low intelligence and those who achieve scores high on the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale are more vulnerable to making false confessions.
Coerced internalized confessions These confessions are those in which the person is so affected by the interrogation process, they come to believe they have actually committed the crime, even though they have no memory of doing so. This seems to occur when the suspect lacks self-confidence, especially in their own memory about a particular event. Research suggests "An interrogator can take advantage of this weakness, sometimes unwittingly, through highly suggestive questioning and proffered explanations for the suspect's alleged lack of memory." The suspect is unable to detect that they are being manipulated into agreeing with something that is not true and begins to agree with the interrogator "until he or she finally comes to accept guilt".
Factors involved To the average person, the possibility that someone would confess to a crime they did not commit seems highly unlikely and makes little sense. The following factors have been found to contribute to false confessions.
Police mindset Police use persuasive manipulation techniques when conducting interrogations in hopes of obtaining a confession. These can include lying about evidence, making suspects believe they are there to help them or pretending to be the suspect's friends. After enough time and persuasion, suspects are likely to conform to the investigators' demands for a confession, even if it was to a crime they did not commit. One of the most important findings in guilt manipulation research is that once guilt is induced in the subject, it can be directed into greater compliance with requests that are completely unrelated to the original source of guilt. This has important implications for police interrogation because guilt induction is recommended in manuals on police interrogation.
A 2010 study conducted by Fisher and Geiselman showed the lack of instruction given to entry-level police officers regarding the interview process. They stated in their research that, "We were discouraged to find that police often receive only minimal, and sometimes no, formal training to interview cooperative witnesses, and, not surprisingly, their actual interview practices are quite poor." While many officers may develop their own interview techniques, the lack of formal training could lead to interviewing with the purpose of simply completing the investigation, regardless of the truth. The easiest way to complete an investigation would be a confession. Fisher and Geiselman concur, saying, "It seems to be more on interrogating suspects (to elicit confessions) rather than on interviewing cooperative witnesses and victims". This study suggests that more training could prevent false confessions, and give police a new mindset while in the interview room.
Reid technique The Reid technique of interrogating suspects was first introduced in the United States in the 1940s and 50s by former police officer John Reid. It was intended to replace the beatings that police frequently used to elicit information. The technique involves a nine-step process. The first step involves directly confronting the suspect with a statement that it is known that they committed the crime. This would usually involve frequent interruptions when the suspect tried to speak. Researchers have found that police interrogators only allowed people to speak for an average of 5.8 seconds before they interrupted. Often, the police lie and describe non-existent evidence that points to the suspect as the offender. In the second step, the police present a hypothesis about why the suspect committed the crime. This explanation "minimizes the moral implications of the alleged offense or allows a suspect to save face by having a morally acceptable excuse for committing the crime."
The Reid technique went on to become the leading interrogation method used by law enforcement throughout the United States and led to countless confessions. In recent years, justice researchers found that not all of those confessions were legitimate and determined that the technique primarily relies on deception, coercion and aggressive confrontation to secure confessions. Despite this, in 2014, it was still popular with police interrogators even though subjects provide less information, and the strategy provides fewer true confessions and more false confessions than less confrontational interviewing techniques.
In 2017, Wicklander-Zulawski & Associates, one of the biggest consulting groups responsible for training law enforcement officers throughout the United States, announced that because of its coercive methods, it would no longer use the Reid technique.
Individual vulnerability In the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Richard Leo wrote: "Even though psychological coercion is the primary cause of police-induced false confessions, individuals differ in their ability to withstand interrogation pressure and thus in their susceptibility to making false confessions. All other things being equal, those who are highly suggestible or compliant are more likely to confess falsely. Individuals who are highly suggestible tend to have poor memories, high levels of anxiety, low self-esteem, and low assertiveness, personality factors that also make them more vulnerable to the pressures of interrogation and thus more likely to confess falsely. Interrogative suggestibility tends to be heightened by sleep deprivation, fatigue, and drug or alcohol withdrawal. Individuals who are highly compliant tend to be conflict avoidant, acquiescent, and eager to please others, especially authority figures." In particular, this tends to apply to individuals who are intellectually impaired or suffer from mental health issues.
Intellectual impairment According to Richard Leo, the developmentally disabled are more likely to confess for a number of reasons. "First, because of their subnormal intellectual functioning, low intelligence, short attention span, poor memory, and poor conceptual and communication skills, they do not always understand statements made to them or the implications of their answers. They often lack the ability to think in a causal way about the consequences of their actions." This also affects their social intelligence. Leo says: "They are not, for example, likely to understand that the police detective who appears to be friendly is really their adversary or to grasp the long-term consequences of making an incriminating statement. They are thus highly suggestible and easy to manipulate ... (they are also) eager to please. They tend to have a high need for approval and thus are prone to being acquiescent."
The case of Canadian Simon Marshall is an example and was one of Quebec's most notorious miscarriages of justice. Marshall was mentally disabled, and accused of a series of rapes in 1997. He confessed to thirteen charges, and was convicted and imprisoned for five years. While in prison he was beaten, sodomized, and scalded with boiling water by other prisoners. Eventually DNA testing established that Marshall was not involved in the crimes. Despite being released, Marshall continues to live in a state of "semi-detention"; he is being held in a psychiatric hospital due to the psychological damage caused during his incarceration. He was awarded $2.3-million in compensation. An inquiry into the case made the point that not only had DNA testing not been done at the time of his trial, Marshall's mental handicap was entirely overlooked throughout his prosecution.
Mental illness