Psychology of Confessions

A brief explanation of what happened in the Jogger case at Central Park (2 points) In 1989, a female jogger was assaulted, raped and then died at Central Park (Kassin, 2005). The police arrested five boys between the ages of 14 and 16 and an African-American or Hispanic-American. The police caused confessions from five boys convicted of crime. However, 13 years later, a man named Matias Reyes spontaneously confessed the crime and proved that his confession was fact from the evidence of DNA.

With the recent settlement of Central Park V incident, we began to think about psychology behind false confession. Why do you admit that they have not committed a crime? Why are these confessions better than all other evidence of the case? Despite the contradiction between DNA and nonexistent physical evidence, why do judges, jurors and spokespersons emphasize confessions? Furthermore, the most important thing is that you can prevent false confessions that could cause serious damage to justice. We talked with Sor Cassin, a professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Williams College. There is no crime and how does a specific interrogation technique promote or restrict the occurrence of false confessions? (Complete disclosure: Saul Kassin serves as an advisory board for this publication.)

Professional testimony about false confessions psychology helps find the personal weaknesses and conditions of the trial where the jury is most likely to lead to false confessions. We may think it obvious that we make the right choice between accepting our attempted crime and trusting the jury to reveal the truth, but life and death When choosing? As William Heirens said, the problem is that if you die, there is nothing to clean up. When you are still alive, you still have the opportunity to prove you are not guilty. So I am alive rather than dead. "

PowerPoint presentation was announced at the 2007 Boston Innocence Network Annual Meeting. This group discussed the reasons why the psychological interrogation strategy brought innocent recognition and the reasons. This meeting focused on the history of the incident and after creating a false confession by providing the suspects with "closed" detailed information, they repeated these detailed information to show that the suspect is guilty. It was. Preliminary report on crime / emergency personnel, mug and complex document, follow-up procedure for interviewer and witness, on-site confirmation procedure (Showup), lineup, record of recognition results. (Page 43) In October 1999, it was developed and approved by the Witness Evidence Technology Working Group of the US Justice Department Judicial Agency.