There are a lot of factors that might contribute to a false confession. False confessions are most often tainted by the interrogation of the suspect. As described in the podcast, the Reid technique is a technique used in interrogations that is designed in order to extract real confessions but often extracts false ones. The technique is designed to basically give the suspect no choice but to confess by lying about the evidence, giving them no chance to deny it, and then trying to make confessing very easy by appealing to them. This can get many false confessions because they put so much pressure on a person and the technique is designed to make confessing the only option out, causing people who didn\u2019t even do the crime to admit to it during the interrogation to make it stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The psychologist in the podcast describes how also tainted questions from the interrogators can cause false confessions because they will reveal information about their hunches which can contribute to a story that the person tells in the false confession, so interrogations should be performed by an unbiased cop who doesn\u2019t know anything about the case to avoid this problem. There is also a major factor in many cases where those being interrogated are young and much more susceptible to authority figures, so will be more likely to admit things when the police scare them and put the pressure on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, modern psychological science has shown that people are very bad at telling when people are lying, which means that police can\u2019t tell if a suspect is lying to them, and juries can\u2019t tell if a confession is true or not. This makes it very hard for police and\/or juries to know with a confession if it is true or not and if they got the right person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This happens to an extreme level too. The podcast describes the first known false confession where two brothers admitted to murdering their step-brother and burying his bones in the backyard, and were sentenced to death. However, the step-brother then returned to town months later, completely fine, and the brothers were exonerated. They were just pressured so much by authorities (and the evidence that was gathered was misinterpreted) that they admitted to the crime even though they didn\u2019t do anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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There are a lot of factors that might contribute to a false confession. False confessions are most often tainted by the interrogation of the suspect. As described in the podcast, the Reid technique is a technique used in interrogations that … Continue reading