False Confessions in the United States

Preventing False Confessions

The most important safeguard against false confessions is the video recording of all suspect interviews and interrogations. As of 2014, 17 states required the recording of interrogations in major felony investigations.

Efforts

The Innocence Project, founded in 1992 by Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck at Cardozo School of Law, exonerates the wrongly convicted through DNA testing and reforms the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.

The Innocence Project’s mission is to free the staggering number of innocent people who remain incarcerated, and to bring reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment.

Resources

Notes

Further Reading

Bikel, O. (Producer and Director). (2010). False confessions. PBS FRONTLINE.Find this resource:

Burns, K., Burns, S., & McMahon, D. (Producers and Directors). (2012). The Central Park Five. PBS FRONTLINE.Find this resource:

Clare, I. C. H., & Gudjonsson, G. H. (1995). The vulnerability of suspects with intellectual disabilities during police interviews: A review and experimental study of decision making. Mental Handicap Research, 8(2), 110–128.Find this resource:

Feld, B. (2013). Kids, cops, and confessions: Inside the interrogation room. New York: New York University Press.Find this resource:

Gudjonsson, G. H. (2003). The psychology of interrogations and confessions: A handbook. Chichester, U.K.: John Wiley & Sons.

Kassin, S. M. (2012). Why confessions trump innocence. American Psychologist, 67(6), 431–445.Find this resource:

Kassin, S. M. (2015). The social psychology of false confessions. Social Issues and Policy Review, 9(1), 25–51.Find this resource:

Kassin, S. M., & Wrightsman, L. S. (1985). Confession evidence. In S. Kassin & L. Wrightsman (Eds.), The psychology of evidence and trial procedure. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE.Find this resource:

Leo, R. A. (2009). False confessions: Causes, consequences, and implications. The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, 37, 332–343.Find this resource:

Mezey, N., & Niles, M. C. (2005). Screening the law: Ideology and law in American popular culture. Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, 28, 91–185.Find this resource:

Shaw, J., & Porter, S. (2015). Constructing rich false memories of committing crime. Psychological Science, 26(3), 291–301.Find this resource:

Stratton, G. (2015). Transforming the Central Park jogger into the Central Park Five: Shifting narratives of innocence and changing media discourse in the attack on the Central Park jogger, 1989–2014. Crime Media Culture, 11(3), 281–297.