Wrong confession

A false confession is a confession that does not correspond to - or at most partially - true facts.

A distinction is made between voluntarily false confessions, forced false confessions (coerced-compliant) and internalized false confessions (coerced internalized), whereby forced and internalized false confessions are usually only made in the course of interrogations.

In 25% of the confessions that were later checked by DNA, it emerged that a false confession had been made, and between 10 and 20% of people questioned several times as accused stated that they had already made incriminating false statements at least once.

Types of False Confessions

Voluntarily false confessions

Voluntarily false confessions can arise from a wide variety of motives.

Among other things, the desire for self-punishment, protection of the actual perpetrator - for example close people - or the pathological addiction to celebrity and attention should be mentioned.

One of those rare, documented cases of narcissistic personality disorder that has escalated into false confessions - in this case hundreds of false confessions - is that of Henry Lee Lucas. The Texas case attracted a great deal of attention when Lucas, an outlier and outsider, anticipated the effects of his previously correct confessions and subsequently confessed to hundreds of other criminals. A later psychological examination confirmed that he had “personality disorders”.

Forced false confessions (coerced-compliant)

Forced false confessions are confessions that are knowingly made under strong (police) interrogation pressure and often serve to achieve a specific goal, e.g. B. to end a stressful interview situation or to receive promised discounts. In doing so, long-term consequences are often not considered, so that in retrospect it is usually also revoked.

Internalizes false confessions (coerced-internalized)

In internalized false confessions, the accused assumes his own guilt even though he is innocent. This can be promoted particularly by long-term, suggestive questioning methods. A 1996 study by Kassin & Kiechel showed a strong effect of incriminating testimony on the internalization of guilt of those accused in the trial. 75% of the test subjects who were incriminated by a testimony and were in a higher state of stress showed signs of internalization, 35% of them even “remembered” further details of an act that they had not committed. Even with the participants in a test situation with less stress, a significant effect of the incriminating testimony was shown. There were no gender differences in any of the effects, so it can be assumed that men and women are equally susceptible to internalization. However, this was only a laboratory study, the external validity of which (application to everyday life) cannot be assessed, especially since the offense in the experiment was a relatively harmless inattentiveness with minor consequences.

Risk factors

The issue of false confessions has received a lot of international attention, as many isolated cases have emerged in which people have been convicted on the basis of false confessions. This is particularly problematic as studies suggest that confessions have a greater impact on court decisions than, for example, eyewitness accounts.

The risk factors of false confessions can be personal or situational.

Situation-related risk factors

Interrogation techniques

The situation-related risk factors include the police's interrogation techniques, which are divided into confession-oriented and information-gathering approaches. The confession-oriented approaches play a larger role in relation to false confessions. One component of these approaches is the minimization technique. The interrogator wants to make it clear to the suspect by signaling understanding for the act and offering excuses and justifications for the act that a confession can improve one's own situation, negative consequences for the self-image can be alleviated and a reduction in punishment could result.

A 1996 study by Kassin and Kiechel confirmed the assumption that the minimization technique increases the likelihood of confessions, but also of false confessions. Another study by Kassin and McNall found the reason for this: According to this, individuals would interpret forbearance in condemnation in the sentences of interrogators who use the minimization technique.

Another interrogation technique of confession-oriented approaches is the maximization technique, which is the counterpart to the minimization technique. A direct assignment of guilt takes place or a general emphasis on the severity of the crime and its consequences in order to convey to the accused that a confession is the only exit from the interrogation.

Minimization and maximization techniques are used, among other things, within the REID method . In general, these practices target actual perpetrators and become problematic when people found guilty are motivated to confess.

In Germany, therefore, the legal framework generally suggests an information-gathering interrogation approach, but this can only be pursued if the accused are willing to testify. However, since motivation to give evidence is often a task of police interrogation, a confession-oriented interrogation approach is used in these cases. This is also often the reason for using the minimization technique, despite the risk of increasing the rate of false confessions.

Other situation-related risk factors

A study by Horselenberg examined whether the plausibility of the alleged act and the expected consequences have an influence on the likelihood of false confessions. It should be noted, however, that these are experimental investigations and that the results can therefore only be transferred to real cases to a limited extent. The results of the study suggest that if plausibility is low, a smaller proportion of people will confess for an act that they can be shown not to have committed. In addition, there were only indications of internalization if there was a high level of plausibility, which means that the test subjects were only convinced that they had committed the crime under this condition.

In order to investigate the significance of the consequences, some of the test subjects were informed that a confession of the crime would result in a financial penalty. It was found here that giving (significant) consequences greatly reduces the likelihood of a false confession.

Since the alleged act of this study (pressing a "forbidden key" on a computer keyboard) could be unintentional behavior, this was later supplemented by studies on deliberate behavior. The results suggest that unintentional behavior is more likely to make false confessions than intentional. This is justified by the fact that the person must have consciously decided on intentional behavior and thus has memories of this decision-making process. In contrast, in the case of unintentional behavior, there is no conscious decision that the person can remember. Thus, the person cannot rule out that this act may have occurred unconsciously. For the same reason, internalizations also occur more easily here.

Personal risk factors

Intellectual impairments

A central personal risk factor for false confessions is intellectual impairment. It can be assumed that witnesses with learning disabilities or intellectual disabilities are indeed able to make statements about events that are relevant to them - however, in terms of completeness and accuracy, their testimony is presumably lower below that of normal talent. In the case of the interrogation of intellectually impaired witnesses, the appropriate questioning seems to be of particular importance, since this group of people show both an increased suggestibility and an impairment of their memory performance.

This is also supported by the assumption by Fulero & Everington that less gifted people make their decisions more dependent on current situational circumstances than others and so, for example, tend to give in to a high level of questioning pressure in order to end the aversive situation. Aversive and suggestive situations seem to increase the risk of false confessions within this group of people.

In the case of professional interrogation, however, it is precisely the “less developed ability to process ideas and productive imagination” that should lead to fewer falsifications, additions or changes to experiences. Several studies have also shown that “free reports from people with learning disabilities are often less complete than reports from an unimpaired comparison sample, but do not contain more incorrect details in proportion”.

Cognitive impairment due to fatigue, sleep deprivation, and lack of glucose

Cognitive impairments of persons under interrogation can also arise acutely through situation-related factors, for example the reduction of the self-regulation ability in a state of exhaustion in a very long interrogation. The resulting decrease in resistance to the police drastically increases the risk of false self-accusations induced by the enormous pressure to be questioned and even completely false confessions.

In addition to the already mentioned states of exhaustion, the serious symptoms of sleep deprivation and acute glucose deficiency should be mentioned here.

This initially leads to a reduction in cognitive performance, which makes short-term goals such as the early end of the interrogation appear disproportionately much more attractive compared to the long-term goals actually pursued, such as the personal best possible outcome of the interrogation. In addition, the cognitive processing capacities for analyzing incoming information are restricted, as is the access to and integration of relevant information from long-term memory. According to studies, the lack of sleep in particular leads to a far increased suggestibility and considerable deficits in decision-making processes.

In addition, the impulse control, the emotion regulation and the working memory performance are reduced as well as under certain circumstances the willpower to defend oneself against suggestive questions and unfair interrogation methods. Overall, however, the combination of several factors always leads to a false confession.

Age of the accused

The age of the accused has a significant influence on the tendency to make a false confession. Findings from studies show that children and adolescents are more prone to making false confessions.

A study by Riedlich and Goodman (2003) examined 3 age groups who were accused on the basis of false evidence of breaking a computer during an experiment: 12–13 year olds, 15–16 year olds and young adults. The study shows that the age group has a significant influence on making a false confession: 78% of 12–13 year olds and 72% of 15–16 year olds made a false confession, compared with 59% of young adults. The two younger age groups are more likely than the young adult group to be responsible for their supposed actions. This finding suggests that the younger an accused is, the more susceptible they are to making a false confession.

In addition, data was collected showing that 12–13 year olds are more prone to conforming to the opinion of an authority without questioning it than young adults. In the study, the youth were presented with a statement that they were asked to sign in order to make their confession and acknowledge guilt. 65% of the 12–13 year olds did not say a single word and signed the declaration without resistance, compared to only 33% of the young adults. The latter asked questions about what was happening and made more comments.

This result is particularly interesting for countries in which 14-year-olds are convicted under adult criminal law. Even at negotiations in which children or young people testify as witnesses, it can be of great importance to be aware of the influenceability of young witnesses and to adapt interrogation techniques (see above) accordingly.

Recognizing false confessions

In about 20% of the flawed convictions, the accused had false confessions. How this could come about has already been explained in previous sections.

It is usually wrongly assumed that police officers in particular can distinguish between true and false confessions. Unfortunately this is not the case.

Studies show that the hit rate in recognizing false confessions with police officers is only a little over 50%, which corresponds to the guessing probability. Even police officers who have undergone special training to train them in this area do not do better. They are just more convinced and feel more confident in their decisions. In addition, police officers frequently make false positives, meaning that a false confession is true.

In comparison, untrained civilians are slightly better at spotting false confessions, making fewer false positives, but are less confident about their decisions.

literature

Russano M., Meissner C., Narchet F., Kassin S. Investigating True and False Confessions Within a Novel Experimental Paradigm. 2005.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gisli Gudjonsson: The making of a false serial confessor: The confessions of Henry Lee Lucas . In: The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry . tape 10 , no. 2 , p. 416-426 , doi : 10.1080 / 09585189908403693 ( tandfonline.com [PDF; accessed June 7, 2017]).
2. ↑ Renate Volbert, Max Steller (ed.): Handbook of legal psychology . Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8017-1851-0 , p. 253 .
3. ^ Saul M. Kassin: The Social Psychology of False Confessions . In: Social Issues and Policy Review . tape 9 , no. 1 , January 1, 2015, ISSN  1751-2409 , p. 25-51 , doi : 10.1111 / sipr.12009 ( wiley.com [accessed June 12, 2017]).
4. ^ Saul M. Kassin, Katherine Neumann: On the power of confession evidence: An experimental test of the fundamental difference hypothesis. In: Law and Human Behavior . tape 21 , no. 5 , p. 469-484 , doi : 10.1023 / a: 1024871622490 .
5. ↑ Robert Horselenberg, Harald Merckelbach, Tom Smeets, Dirk Franssens, Gjalt-Jorn Ygram Peters: False confessions in the lab: Do plausibility and consequences matter? In: Psychology, Crime & Law . tape 12 , no. 1 , January 1, 2006, ISSN  1068-316X , p. 61-75 , doi : 10.1080 / 1068310042000303076 .
6. ↑ Volbert, Lau: ability to give evidence . In: Volbert, Steller (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Rechtsspsychologie . tape 9 . Hogrefe, 2008, p. 290 .
7. ^ Lucy A. Henry, Gisli H. Gudjonsson: Eyewitness Memory, Suggestibility, and Repeated Recall Sessions in Children with Mild and Moderate Intellectual Disabilities. (PDF) Retrieved June 9, 2017 . 
8. ↑ Greuel, L., Offe, S., Fabian, A., Wetzels, P., Fabian, T., Offe & H., Stadler, M .: Credibility of the testimony. Theory and practice of forensic-psychological assessment . Beltz, Weinheim 1998.
9. ↑ Renate Volbert: False Confessions - About the possible effects of presetting, interrogation and understanding . In: Forensic Psychiatry, Psychology, Criminology . No. 7 , 2013, p. 230-239 .
10. ↑ Sandra Loos: Statements by witnesses with intellectual disabilities . In: Legal Psychology Section (Ed.): Practice of Legal Psychology . tape 1 , no. 23 . Deutscher Psychologen Verlag GmbH, Berlin August 2013, p. 82/83 .
11. ↑ Bull, R .: Innovative Techniques for the Questioning of Child Witnesses, especially those who are young and those with Learning Disability . In: Zaragoza, MS, Graham, JR, Hall, G., Hirschman, R., Ben-Porath, YS (Eds.): Memory and Testimony in the Child Witness . Sage Publications, London 1995, pp. 179-194 .
12. ↑ Milne, R., Clare, I., Bull, R .: Using the Cognitive Interview with Adults with Mild Learning Disability . In: Psychology, Crime, and Law . Chichester Wiley, 1999, p. 5, 81-101 .
13. ↑ Matthew T. GAILLIOT, Roy F. Baumeister: The Physiology of Willpower: Linking Blood Glucose to Self-Control . In: Personality and Social Psychology Review . tape 11 , no. 4 , June 29, 2016, p. 303-327 , doi : 10.1177 / 1088868307303030 ( sagepub.com [accessed June 14, 2017]).
14. ↑ Paula Alhola, Päivi Polo-Kantola: Sleep deprivation: Impact on cognitive performance . Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, March 2007, p. 553-567 .
15. ↑ Deborah Davis, Richard A. Leo: Interrogation-related regulatory decline: Ego depletion, failures of self-regulation, and the decision to confess. In: Psychology, Public Policy, and Law . tape 18 , no. 4 , p. 673-704 , doi : 10.1037 / a0027367 ( apa.org [accessed June 14, 2017]).
16. ^ Saul M. Kassin, Christian A. Meissner, Rebecca J. Norwick: "I'd know a False Confession If I Saw One": A Comparative Study of College Students and Police Investigators . In: Law and Human Behavior . tape 29 , no. 2 , 2005, p. 211-227 .