False Confession Research Paper

False Confessions

Criminal Process In Need Of Reform
False Confessions
Shareen Mioskowski
UW-Platteville
2013

Abstract

With the pressure on the police too often the innocent are giving false confessions because of aggressive interrogation tactics with wrongful convictions as a result. And although post-conviction DNA testing has proven and exonerated some of those that were innocent and imprisoned there has been a renewed focus to reform reliability of the interrogation process to improve the accuracy of confessions and safeguard the integrity of the criminal process.

Police Approach
There are two errors that can occur within the police approach to an innocent person which can lead to a path of false confession. First being
When no other evidence against the subject can be found, getting a confession becomes of outmost importance, and with the misclassification of an innocent person they are often subjected to accusation interrogation. The primary cause of police-induced false confession is psychologically coercive police methods. Two ways of the psychological coercion can be defined: police use of interrogation techniques that are regarded as inherently coercive in psychology and law, or police use of interrogation techniques that, cumulatively cause a suspect to perceive that he has no choice but to comply with interrogator’s demands (Leo, R. 2013). With coercion there are police practices in interrogations that can also lead to false confessions. Although police have been trained not to contaminate a confession, doing so by feeding or leaking crucial facts. Feeding facts contaminates a confession because if a suspect is told how the crime happened, then police can never again properly test the suspect’s knowledge (Garrett, B.
Kassin identified these three types of false confessions, Voluntary false confessions are those made “without prompting the police,” Compliant false confessions are those in which, “the suspect acquiesces in order to escape from a stressful situation, avoid punishment, or gain a promise or implied reward,”. The compliant false confession stems from police interrogation. The compliant confessor still believes in her or his innocence. The third type is the internalized false confession. Kassin defines this type as ”those in which innocent but vulnerable suspects, exposed to highly suggestive interrogation tactics, not only confess but come to believe they committed the crime in question”. Because these individuals believe they committed the crime, they may be likely to pass a polygraph admitting to the crime (Kassin, S.