Recent DNA exonerations have shed light on the problem that people sometimes confess to crimes they did not commit. Drawing on police practices, laws concerning the admissibility of confession evidence, core principles of psychology, and forensic studies involving multiple methodologies, this White Paper summarizes what is known about police-induced confessions. In this review, we identify suspect characteristics (e.g., adolescence; intellectual disability; mental illness; and certain personality traits), interrogation tactics (e.g., excessive interrogation time; presentations of false evidence; and minimization), and the phenomenology of innocence (e.g., the tendency to waive Miranda rights) that influence confessions as well as their effects on judges and juries. This article concludes with a strong recommendation for the mandatory electronic recording of interrogations and considers other possibilities for the reform of interrogation practices and the protection of vulnerable suspect populations.

With a few notable exceptions, the research on interrogation, suspect interviewing, and intelligence collection has been predominantly focused on either broad categories of their methods (e.g., information gathering vs. accusatorial models) or very specific techniques (e.g., using open-ended questions, appealing to the source's conscience). The broad categories, however, are not meaningful enough to fully describe the dynamic between interrogator and subject, whereas the specific techniques may be too detailed to understand and research the process of interrogation. To remedy this and advance the academic and operational fields, we identified 71 unique techniques and sorted them into six domains: Rapport and Relationship Building, Context Manipulation, Emotion Provocation, Collaboration, Confrontation/Competition, and Presentation of Evidence. The resulting three-level structure consisting of broad categories, the six domains, and specific techniques form a taxonomy of interrogation methods. In addition, we propose a testable model of how the domains may interact in the process of interrogation. The taxonomy and theoretical model offer heuristic devices for both researchers and practitioners searching for a parsimonious and more meaningful way to describe, research, and understand the interviewing and interrogation of those accused of wrong-doing or possessing guilty knowledge.

Mental health courts meet the public safety objectives of lowering posttreatment arrest rates and days of incarceration. Both clinical and criminal justice factors are associated with better public safety outcomes for MHC participants.

Inherent in false confessions is a person taking responsibility for an act he or she did not commit. The risk of taking such responsibility may be elevated in juveniles. To study possible factors that influence individuals' likelihood for taking responsibility for something they did not do, participants in a laboratory experiment were led to believe they crashed a computer when in fact they had not. Participants from 3 age groups were tested: 12-and 13-year-olds, 15-and 16-year-olds, and young adults. Half of the participants in each age group were presented with false evidence indicating liability. Additionally, suggestibility was investigated as a potential individual-difference factor affecting vulnerability to admissions of guilt. Results showed that younger and more suggestible participants were more likely than older and less suggestible participants to falsely take responsibility. Implications of these findings for juvenile justice are discussed.

Objectives We completed a systematic review and meta-analysis of the available empirical literature assessing the influence of accusatorial and information-gathering methods of interrogation in eliciting true and false confessions. Methods We conducted two separate meta-analyses. The first meta-analysis focused on observational field studies that assessed the association between certain interrogation methods and elicitation of a confession statement. The second meta-analysis focused on experimental, laboratory-based studies in which ground truth was known (i.e., a confession is factually true or false). We located 5 field studies and 12 experimental studies eligible for the meta-analyses. We coded outcomes from both study types and report mean effect sizes with 95 % confidence intervals. A random effects model was used for analysis of effect sizes. Moderator analyses were conducted when appropriate.Results Field studies revealed that both information-gathering and accusatorial approaches were more likely to elicit a confession when compared with direct questioning methods. However, experimental studies revealed that the information-gathering approach preserved, and in some cases increased, the likelihood of true confessions, while simultaneously reducing the likelihood of false confessions. In contrast, the accusatorial approach increased both true and false confessions when compared with a direct questioning method. Conclusions The available data support the effectiveness of an information-gathering style of interviewing suspects. Caution is warranted, however, due to the small number of independent samples available for the analysis of both field and experimental studies. Additional research, including the use of quasi-experimental field studies, appears warranted.