False confessions make no sense. If someone is innocent, shouldn’t they maintain that claim? If they do confess, then they’re guilty. Nope. False confessions happen regularly and are a leading cause of wrongful convictions in the United States. Why do people falsely confess? Many factors contribute to false confessions. One of them is that investigators are trained to interrogate suspects with the ultimate goal of obtaining a confession. They’re also taught to only interview people they think are guilty. This creates an expectation of guilt. Interactions between the interviewer and interviewee and the specific dynamics between the two can influence the outcome. Something called the Reid Technique commonly used demonstrates investigators’ power over the situation. The technique includes confrontation, aggressive tactics, interrupting, lying about possible evidence, and even giving details about how they committed a crime (Gruman, 2016). This technique has led to many false confessions because it is a high-stress situation that amplifies this stress and preys on vulnerable people. The impact of false confessions is not to be underestimated.
The justice system is very easily influenced by confession evidence, even if it’s false and there is no other evidence against the person. This happens because of what’s called the fundamental attribution error, which explains that it’s more common to describe someone’s behavior as internally driven instead of externally. So, investigators, jurors, judges, and the general public might see the confession, false or not, and attribute it to an internal cause such as the person is terrible instead of contemplating the external factors like investigative coercion (Gruman, 2016). Labeling someone who has confessed as a rotten egg and not even considering anything otherwise is the fundamental attribution error in action. In fact, a study focused on jurors’ false confession and coercive investigation knowledge found that although participants agreed that some stressful and persuasive interrogation techniques could lead to false confessions, they believed that they are “counter-intuitive and unlikely, even in response to psychologically coercive interrogation techniques that have been shown to lead to false confessions from the innocent” (Leo & Liu, 2009). People just don’t believe that false confessions are all that common.
In addition, false confessions negatively impact other evidence, information, etc. Let’s say you’re a witness to a crime and asked to view a lineup of suspects. Suppose the investigator informed you that a particular person in the lineup had confessed to the crime. In that case, you’d be more likely to identify that person as the perpetrator even if they’re innocent. Confessions impact how we process all types of information about a crime, including handwriting. It’s even more likely that an alibi witness will deny their friend’s alibi if they think the friend has confessed (Gruman, 2016). None of this makes logical sense because if you were with your friend during the crime, how could they confess? The phenomenon is called forensic confirmation bias which sets the stage with the confession and taints anything new, creating a bias against the confessed. How can false confessions be avoided?
It’s all about the interview. We’ve all seen tv shows and movies portraying hostile witness or suspect interviews that feature violence and coercion. Unfortunately, coercive techniques are all too common in reality as well. Even without consciously trying, interviewers can accidentally influence the outcome by asking closed-ended questions and interrupting. A new type of law enforcement interview called the cognitive interview had been hailed as an innovative and much more accurate technique. The CI uses open-ended and nonleading questions as well as expertly timed silence. Details are essential in an interview, and the CI allows the person, whether witness or subject, to describe things in their own words and at their own pace. It also improves information accuracy by 20-50% (Gruman, 2016). The cognitive interview is an essential tool for the criminal justice system that ensures that witnesses and suspects are not being pressured, coerced, or made to feel the need to confess falsely.
To this day, false confessions are still happening all too often. Like researchers Leo and Liu found, people have a hard time believing that they happen because they just don’t make sense. Unfortunately, this disbelief and disconnection hinder the justice system because people are more likely to judge the accused based on biases created by the false confession without considering an alternative explanation. Through the development of the cognitive interview, it’s hopeful that, in the future, the false confession is a long-forgotten misstep in the system of justice.
Works Cited
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (Eds.). (2016). Applied social psychology : Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. SAGE Publications.
Leo, R. A., & Liu, B. (2009). What do potential jurors know about police interrogation techniques and false confessions? Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 27(3), 381-399. doi:10.1002/bsl.872
False confessions are an interesting topic. Why is it so easy to convince us to sign a false confession? What leads people to believe they’d be better off admitting to something they didn’t do?
The ease of eliciting a false confession is somewhat frightening. In an experiment by Kassin and Kiechel in 1996, almost 70% of participants were convinced to confess to something they had not done (Gruman, et al., 2016). Further studies have indicated that confessions can be reliably obtained by bluffing about evidence or insisting that the suspect is guilty (Gruman, et al., 2016).
It is hard to tell exactly why people admit to things they haven’t done. Perhaps they trust the system- a just system would eventually exonerate an innocent person. Maybe they feel as though there is no hope in resisting the authority that demands the confession. It is even possible that the interrogation process is stressful enough that people will say anything to make it stop.
We need to reform our system. Being able to coerce false confessions, and use those confessions to secure convictions without evidence, is not justice. It may be a victory, and it may bring closure to a narrative, but it isn’t right. Many innocent people suffer from this trend and we should reform the approach to seeking confessions.
Gruman, J. A., Schneider, F. W., & Coutts, L. M. (2016). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (3rd Edition). SAGE Publications, Inc. (US). https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781506353951
I recently learned in depth about the Reid Technique and the psychology behind false confessions in my Forensic Psych class. It was quite unsettling to learn about the many flaws of this technique (many of which you mentioned) and the resultingly high rates of false confessions in the criminal justice system. Being that we possess the knowledge that such major flaws do, in fact, exist, it is equally unsettling that our justice system continues to utilize these techniques.
An article by Kassin (2005) makes several great points about the weaknesses of the Reid Technique to add to those you described. As you mentioned, police interrogators are trained through this technique to prioritize obtaining a confession (above all else). This becomes particularly destructive when combined with the assumption that this training and prior interrogation experience increases one’s ability to extract true and accurate confessions (Kassin, 2005). Although numerous studies have proven this notion incorrect, most police interrogators continue to possess this false sense of confidence. This leads them to question their own efficacy much less and results in a certain “blindness” to potential errors made during the interrogation process–they tend to believe that they are much less likely to make mistakes than they truly are (Kassin, 2005). The consequences of this are detrimental, as proven by continuously high rates of false confessions.
To make matters worse, it has been proven that an individual’s innocence can and often does work against them during interrogation. Innocent individuals are more likely to waive their Miranda Rights and cooperate fully with police throughout the interrogation process (Kassin, 2005). Their guard is down, as they believe they have nothing to hide and have faith that the criminal justice system works as it should. This cooperation, however (unbeknownst to these individuals) simply elevates the ease with which interrogators are able to manipulate these individuals utilizing the Reid Technique–which, again, prioritizes extracting a confession regardless of whether it is true or false (Kassin, 2005).
I was also very surprised to learn that very few U.S. states mandate the video recording of the interrogation process in its entirety. As well, many departments who do videotape the process focus the camera almost entirely on the individual being interrogated. Little to no focus is placed on the interrogator (Kassin, 2005). This can be extremely detrimental, especially to cases involving false confessions, because it results in little evidence of potentially incorrect and/or unethical interrogation techniques that may have contributed to the false confession. Judges and jurors then, as you mentioned, are only presented with the inherently convincing confession. They are largely unaware of the bias that exists in the evidence presented to them.
In consideration of each of these flaws, as well as those you described, it is evident that significant changes must be made to legal interrogation processes in the U.S. The Reid Technique should either be extensively modified or thrown out entirely and replaced with methods such as the cognitive interview. In addition, full video recording of interrogation processes should be mandated and modified to focus equally on the suspect and the interrogator. Better efforts should also be made to educate legal professionals involved in criminal trials on the risks and consequences of flawed interrogation techniques.
References
Kassin, S. M. (2005). On the Psychology of Confessions. American Psychologist, 60(3), 215–228. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.60.3.215
In the justice system confessions are usually held to high standards and considered absolute but as your post shows that’s not always the case. Something else I think is routinely considered without flaw would be eye witness testimony. Over and over you will hear about a case with witness statements and assume that is enough evidence to convict. However a majority of cases that end up overturned were convicted solely on eye witness accounts. Important not to assume based on headlines the actual facts of the case.
Reference: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/teaching/myth-eyewitness-testimony-is-the-best-kind-of-evidence.html