Causes and Prevention of False Confession - Research Paper Example

False Confession – Causes And Prevention Introduction The term false confession refers to the acceptance of performing and indulging in a particular criminal activity by an individual or a suspect even when an individual may not have been a part off or committed the criminal activity. There are various reasons due to which an individual may indulge in the act of false confession. False confessions have been divided into various types and all these types are dependent on several reasons. Voluntary false confession takes place when an individual confesses of a particular crime out of his own freewill and has not been coerced into false confession (Leo, 2008). Another form of false confession is coerced-compliant false confession and this form of confession takes place when an individual has been physically as well as mentally been coerced into accepting indulgence in a particular criminal act (Leo, 2008). A third form of false confession is labeled as coerced-internalized false confession and this form of false confession occurs when an individual is made to believe that he she has been a part of criminal activity (Leo, 2008). In case of coerced-internalized false confession, the investigators or the interrogators use false evidence to make the suspect believe that he committed a particular crime. False confession or false acceptance of guilt may occur due to several reasons including the pre-assumption of police that an individual has committed a crime, because an individual is physically and mentally coerced and because of psychological disorders experienced by the confessor. (Thesis Statement) Body Problem Statement False confessions is a really major issue because several innocent people may be imprisoned and may experience heavy penalties if they falsely confess and a major percentage of innocents do falsely confess of a crime. Elinson has reported that during the period of 2013, 38% teenagers who aged below the age of 18 falsely confessed to committing a crime that they did not commit (Elinson, 2013). Elinson further states that the percentage of teenagers falsely confessing is quite high as compared to the percentage of adults indulged in false confessions (Elinson, 2013). Elinson states that only 11% of the adults indulged in the act of false confession and this figure is quite low as compared to the percentage of teens providing a false confession (Elinson, 2013). The problem of false confession is quite devastating because firstly it results in the imprisonment of an innocent. Furthermore, it even points out the inability of the police officials to wrongly judge the difference between the innocent and the criminal. Thirdly, it even depicts that police officials are indulging in the practice of police misconduct by coercing innocent people into accepting a crime they did not commit. Another issue is that those who commit crimes may end up being allowed to roam freely on the streets and criminals may not be deterred from indulging in deviant behavior. Causes Of False Confession One of the core reasons for the occurrence of false confession is that police detectives incorrectly assume that a particular suspect is guilty of the crime being investigated. When police officials have decided beforehand that a particular individual is a criminal, the police officials conduct the practice of interrogations as well as questioning while keeping in mind that the person being interrogated is a criminal (Leo, 2008). There are several reasons due to which police officials may believe that a particular suspect is a criminal. One of the reasons is that police officials are trained in such a manner that they are made to believe that they can easily differentiate between criminals and non-criminals. In other words, police officials are made to believe that they have the ability to easily differentiate between truth and lies by using the Reid Method (Leo, 2008). A research was conducted by Whelan et al. in which 107 police and non-police officials were recruited to observe a video and identify whether people in the videos were lying or speaking the truth (Whelan et al., 2015). The researchers were able to identify that the accuracy with which police officials were able to differentiate between lie and truth was 72% (Whelan et al., 2015). This research clearly rejects the claims that police official are able to accurately differentiate between truths and lie by using the Reid Method or through their intuition. Research conducted by Whelan et al. even depicts that around 28% of the time police officials may make a mistake in identifying whether a particular suspect is criminal or not. Due to their inability to accurately differentiate between truth and lie, police officials end up assuming that certain individuals are criminals and may interrogate them in compliance with their perception. Another reason due to which a particular suspect may end up providing a false confession is that that the police officers may coerce an individual in order to obtain a confession. Police officers may use both psychological coercion as well as physical coercion to make the suspect accept that he/she is guilty of a particular crime. Most commonly police use psychological coercion in order to obtain a confession (Leo, 2008). The term psychological coercion refers to the use of those methods of interrogation due to which an individual may believe that the only way he/she can protect themselves is by complying with the demands of the police officers. For example, police officers may threaten to harm the suspect through painful interrogation techniques. These interrogation techniques might even be regarded as third degree torture such as disbanding the fingers of the suspect. According to Kassin et al. police officials use various techniques to psychologically coerce suspects in order to obtain a confession (Kassin et al., 2007). Kassin et al. even states that a research helped them in identifying that 92% of the 630 police officials from United States and Canada accepted to using the psychologically coercive technique of false-evidence ploy as an interrogation tool (Kassin et al., 2007). A study was conducted by Blandón-Gitlin et al. in order to identify the perception regarding the likelihood of an interrogation technique’s ability to obtain a true or false confession (Blandón-Gitlin et al., 2011). In order to conduct this study, 126 jurors were recruited who were provided with a questionnaire that comprised of different interrogation techniques and the jurors were required to identify the likelihood of that confession technique’s ability to obtain a true or false confession. 65% of these jurors were highly educated and 73% of these jurors had never been a part of jury (Blandón-Gitlin et al., 2011). These jurrors were not experts from the field of forensic criminology or from criminal justice system. But the fact that these jurors were normal citizens increases the effectiveness of the study as these citizens can actually provide insight regarding their perception of the degree of psychological coercion that suspects face when they are coerced by police officials. The researchers identified that when a suspect is provided with false evidence of DNA, the likelihood of obtaining a false confession was as high as 39% (Blandón-Gitlin et al., 2011). This research depicts that police use interrogation techniques such as providing suspects with false DNA evidence and the suspects feel psychologically threatened and they may accept to committing a particular crime. A third reason due to which an individual may falsely admit to committing a particular crime is that an individual may be suffering from a mental disorder that might have caused him to falsely confess. There are various psychological disorders that can compel even an innocent individual to end up falsely confessing to a particular crime. According to Cordner et al. police officers do not have a duty of identifying whether a suspect who is being interrogated is mentally ill (Cordner et al., 2006). Cordner et al. further states that police officials come across various suspects who are experiencing psychological disorders (Cordner et al., 2006). Due to this police officers need to use interrogation techniques that are much relaxed for the mentally ill (Cordner et al., 2006). In order to identify that a suspect being interrogated, it is essential that police officers are provided with training in the area of mental illness diagnosis (Cordner et al., 2006). For example, those suffering from the psychological disorder of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) experience various symptoms that force them to provide a false confession. One of these symptoms includes their desire to attain short-term benefits and their failure to identify long-term rewards associated with particular actions. Due to such symptoms a person suffering from ADHD may provide a false confession especially if the person is being mentally abused. When being mentally abuse, people suffering from ADHD may comply with the police officers in order to obtain the short-term reward of escaping and avoiding the mental torture. The term psychological or mental torture is used to refer to the threats of carrying out violence such as threatening to kill. Gudjonsson et al. conducted a study in order to identify the link between compliance by suspects and symptoms of ADHD experienced by the suspect at the time of interrogation. In order to conduct this study 90 prisoners who were making were studied. The researchers were able to identify that 60% of those subjects who were studied were suffering from symptoms of ADHD that they developed during childhood and due to these symptoms the prisoners complied with the police officers at the time of interrogation and now they were claiming that they had provided a false confession (Gudjonsson et al., 2008). Whether the subjects of the study were criminals or victims have not been established but these subjects have claimed that they had provided false confessions due to the coercive interrogation techniques that have been used by the investigating officers. This research provides clear indication that certain individuals who suffer from psychological disorders such as ADHD are not able to withstand the interrogation techniques used by police officers and may end up giving a false confession in order to escape from interrogation. Preventing False Confession In order to prevent false confessions from taking place reforms and measures need to be made in compliance with the causes of false confession. One of the major causes of false confession is that police presume that a suspect is guilty even before he/she has been proven guilty of committing a particular crime. The police officials do not have any hard facts to assume that the suspects they have arrested are guilty or not and they base their perception of a suspect’s innocence or guilt on the Reid method and their own intuition and these methods are not 100% accurate (Leo, 2008). In order to avoid false confessions taking place due to this factor, the police officials need to be educated and trained that they cannot possible be hundred percent sure that they have to ability to differentiate between a person who is a criminal or non-criminal. The training sessions that have been previously informing police officers regarding their lie detection ability need to be changed and police officials need to be made aware of their inability to detect difference between lie and truth. A second major reason due to which false confessions take place is that police officials use psychological and physical coercive techniques to obtain a false confession. Kassin et al. states that 92% of the police officials that they surveyed during their research accepted using the psychologically coercive technique of false-evidence ploy as an interrogation tool (Kassin et al., 2007) In order to eliminate this cause of false confession; laws need to be changed regarding interrogation. The law makers need to make sure that the entire interrogation is video tapes or audio recorded to ensure that police officials do not cross the line in order to attain a false confession. A third reason due to which false confessions takes place is due to the psychological disorders experienced by the individuals being interrogated. Cordner et al. states that it is not the duty of police officials to diagnose suspects who suffering with mental disorders but training provided to them in this area can be helpful in ensuring that relaxed interrogation techniques are used and the guilt/innocence of a suspect is correctly identified (Cordner et al., 2006). In order to counter this cause of false confessions, police officers need to be provided with special training regarding interrogation and questioning methods used to interrogate people suffering from mental disorders. Conclusion False confession is a term used to refer to the act of acceptance of guilt even when an individual or a suspect is not guilty of a particular crime. False confessions take place because police officers presume that a particular suspect is guilty of a particular crime. Due to this presumption, police officers use coercive techniques in order to obtain a false confession. These coercive techniques may or may not include both psychological and physical coercive techniques and due to these techniques the suspect may give in and provide a false confession. These coercive techniques are so unbearable that individuals suffering from psychological disorders may provide a false confession. For example, individual suffering from ADHD symptoms may provide a false confession to avoid the psychological abuse they have to go through as a result of psychologically coercive techniques of interrogation used by police officers. In order to prevent false confessions to take place measures need to be adopted that help in countering the causes of false confessions. These measures may include providing training to police officers and making laws to record interrogations. References Blandón-Gitlin, I., Sperry, K., & Leo, R. (March 01, 2011). Jurors believe interrogation tactics are not likely to elicit false confessions: will expert witness testimony inform them otherwise?. Psychology, Crime & Law, 17, 3, 239-260. Cordner, G. W., & United States. (2006). People with mental illness. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Elinson, Z. (2013). False Confessions Dog Teens. WSJ. Retrieved 16 March 2015, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324906304579036901493013302 Gudjonsson, G. H., Sigurdsson, J. F., Bragason, O. O., Newton, A. K., & Einarsson, E. (January 01, 2008). Interrogative suggestibility, compliance and false confessions among prisoners and their relationship with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. Psychological Medicine, 38, 7, 1037-44. Kassin, S., Leo, R., Meissner, C., Richman, K., Colwell, L., Leach, A.-M., & Fon, D. (January 01, 2007). Police Interviewing and Interrogation: A Self-Report Survey of Police Practices and Beliefs. Law and Human Behavior, 31, 4, 381-400. Leo, R. A. (2008). Police interrogation and American justice. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Whelan, C. W., Wagstaff, G., & Wheatcroft, J. M. (January 01, 2015). High stakes lies: police and non-police accuracy in detecting deception. Psychology Crime and Law, 21, 2, 127-138. Read More