PSYC 3210U Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Central Park Jogger Case, Alt Key, Reid Technique
Unit 3 – Psychology of Police Investigations
False Confessions
• Intentionally fabricated
• Not based on actual knowledge of facts that form content
Retracted confessions
• Claim confession false at later date
• Could claim that police forced them to talk to get out of a situation
Disputed confessions
• Legal technicality
• Claimed never confession never made
• Deals with the court process
False Confessions – Incidence
• Do they actually occur?
- Hard to say that it actually occurs
• Self-report = 1 – 12%
• Wrongful convictions = 25% contain false confessions
- Cases where DNA evidence prove that person is innocent
Types of False Confessions
• Voluntary False Confession
- No prompting by police
- Reasons:
➢ Protect real offender
➢ Notoriety
➢ Need to relieve guilt
➢ Cannot distinguish fact from fantasy
• Coerced Compliant
- Caused by police interrogation tactics
- Confessor knows they are innocent
- Reasons:
➢ Escape interrogation situation
➢ Gain promised reward/escape threatened punishment
- Arguably most common
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- Central park jogger case
➢ Youths arrested with long interrogations
➢ Real rapist then confessed and youths were released after 5- 10 years
• Coerced-Internalized
- Believe they committed crime
- Highly suggestive interrogations
- Reasons:
➢ Substance abuse
➢ Vulnerable mental state (anxious, confused, etc.)
➢ Highly suggestible questions
False Confessions – Research
• Tpe ithout hittig Alt Ke
- Students participated in a experiment
- Wee told ot to hit the alt ke utto o else the oputes ould
crash
• All computers crashed and people iteogated
- False evidence
- Vulnerability
• Experimenters measured level of:
- Compliance
- Internalization
- Confabulation (make up details to match their confession)
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• Russano/Cheating paradigm
- Participants perform individual and group problems
➢ Told thell ok o ath poles
- Guilty condition = poide help o idiidual pole
- Innocent condition = not asked to provide help
- Accused of cheating by experimenter
• Large minority falsely confessed (20%)
- Offered a deal (8% increase)
- Minimization tactics (12% increase)
➢ Not that big of a deal
- Both (37% increase)
False Confessions – Consequences
• Innocent people sent to jail (or executed)
- Juries ignore how confession was obtained
- They assume if someone did it then they actually did it
• Guilty person not apprehended
• Waste of time and resources
• Impact on victim
Practice Question #1
If a suspect confesses because of coercive interrogation tactics but they know
they are innocent, this would be considered a:
Answer = Coerced- Compliant False Confession
Police Interrogations and the Reid Technique
Police Interrogation Goals
• Main goal is to obtain a confession
- Confessions are powerful evidence in court
• Gain information to further the investigation
- Location of evidence
- Co-conspirators (other people involved)
- Exact details of crime
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
False confessions: intentionally fabricated, not based on actual knowledge of facts that form content. Retracted confessions: claim confession false at later date, could claim that police forced them to talk to get out of a situation. Disputed confessions: legal technicality, claimed never confession never made, deals with the court process. Hard to say that it actually occurs: self-report = 1 12, wrongful convictions = 25% contain false confessions. Cases where dna evidence prove that person is innocent. Types of false confessions: voluntary false confession. Cannot distinguish fact from fantasy: coerced compliant. Real rapist then confessed and youths were released after 5- 10 years: coerced-internalized. False confessions research: t(cid:455)pe (cid:449)ithout hitti(cid:374)g (cid:862)alt(cid:863) ke(cid:455) We(cid:396)e told (cid:374)ot to hit the (cid:862)alt(cid:863) ke(cid:455) (cid:271)utto(cid:374) o(cid:396) else the (cid:272)o(cid:373)pute(cid:396)s (cid:449)ould crash: all computers crashed and people (cid:862)i(cid:374)te(cid:396)(cid:396)ogated(cid:863) Confabulation (make up details to match their confession) Guilty condition = p(cid:396)o(cid:448)ide help o(cid:374) (cid:862)i(cid:374)di(cid:448)idual(cid:863) p(cid:396)o(cid:271)le(cid:373)
