Confessions are crucial to successful police investigations but scholars have significantly overlooked factors that contribute to an offender's decision to confess a crime. This study aims to examine a large array of factors that play a role in the offender's decision to confess a crime to the police and potential interaction effect among them. A total of 221 adult males incarcerated in a federal Canadian penitentiary were recruited. Correctional files, police reports, and offenders' self-reported data were collected and analyzed. Controlling for sociodemographic, criminological, and contextual factors, a series of logistic regression analyses were conducted. Findings highlighted the predominant role of police evidence over and above other factors analyzed. Furthermore, sociodemographic and criminological factors played a more important role in the offender's decision to confess when police evidence was weak. Findings are discussed in light of the current scientific literature on the determinants of offenders' decision to confess their crime.Keywords police interrogation; confession; police evidence; adult offenders; police investigation Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nadine Deslauriers-Varin, Criminology Program, School of Social Work, Université Laval, Pav. Charles-de Koninck, 1030, Av. Des Sciences-Humaines, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada, G1V 0A6. E-mail: nadine.deslauriers-varin@svs.ulaval.ca CONFESSING THEIR CRIME 2 Confessing their Crime: Factors Influencing the Offender's Decision to Confess to the Police Police interrogation and the offender's confession are two important components of successful police investigations. The offender's confession has been a essential component in a substantial number of cases where criminal charges were laid against a suspect and a number of police interrogations included confessions that were crucial to the corroboration of incriminating facts and findings from the crime scene (Baldwin, 1993;Imbau, Reid, Buckley, & Jayne, 2001;Phillips & Brown, 1998). For example, in the USA, Leo (1996) found that in 33% of the 182 interrogation cases analyzed, evidence was too weak to justify laying charges without the suspect's confession. As well, Phillips and Brown (1998) also found that in 11% of cases reviewed, additional confessions from the suspects contributed to solving crimes for which the suspects had not been arrested. The offender's confession is vital in laying criminal charges and also in proving guilt. For example, in 13% of cases reviewed by McConville (1993) in the UK, the only court evidence was a suspect's confession. However, considering its importance to the success of police interrogations, scholars and researchers have largely overlooked closer examination of the suspect's confession, and only limited empirical studies exist that reveal its prevalence and associated factors. Recent studies have mainly focused on the phenomena of false confession and police investigators' ability to detect deception and false confessions (Blair,...

For security and justice professionals (e.g., police officers, lawyers, judges), the thousands of peer-reviewed articles on nonverbal communication represent important sources of knowledge. However, despite the scope of the scientific work carried out on this subject, professionals can turn to programs, methods, and approaches that fail to reflect the state of science. The objective of this article is to examine (i) concepts of nonverbal communication conveyed by these programs, methods, and approaches, but also (ii) the consequences of their use (e.g., on the life or liberty of individuals). To achieve this objective, we describe the scope of scientific research on nonverbal communication. A program (SPOT; Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques), a method (the BAI; Behavior Analysis Interview) and an approach (synergology) that each run counter to the state of science are examined. Finally, we outline five hypotheses to explain why some organizations in the fields of security and justice are turning to pseudoscience and pseudoscientific techniques. We conclude the article by inviting these organizations to work with the international community of scholars who have scientific expertise in nonverbal communication and lie (and truth) detection to implement evidence-based practices. Análisis de la comunicación no verbal: los peligros de la pseudociencia en entornos de seguridad y justicia R E S U M E N Para los profesionales de la seguridad y la justicia (policías, abogados, jueces), los miles de artículos revisados por pares sobre comunicación no verbal representan fuentes importantes de conocimiento. Sin embargo, a pesar del alcance del trabajo científico realizado sobre este tema, los profesionales pueden recurrir a programas, métodos y enfoques que no reflejan el estado real de la ciencia. El objetivo de este artículo es examinar (i) los conceptos de comunicación no verbal transmitidos por estos programas, métodos y enfoques, pero también (ii) las consecuencias de su uso (por ejemplo, sobre la vida o la libertad de las personas). Para lograr estos objetivos, describimos el alcance de la investigación científica sobre la comunicación no verbal. Se examina un programa (SPOT: Evaluación de pasajeros mediante técnicas de observación), un método (BAI: Entrevista de análisis de conducta) y un enfoque (sinergología) que contradicen el estado de la ciencia. Finalmente, presentamos cinco hipótesis para explicar por qué algunas organizaciones en los campos de la seguridad y la justicia están recurriendo a la pseudociencia y a las técnicas pseudocientíficas. Concluimos el artículo invitando a estas organizaciones a trabajar con la comunidad académica internacional especializada en la investigación sobre comunicación no verbal y detección de mentiras (y verdad) para implementar prácticas basadas en la evidencia.

Most studies of confessions have looked at the influence of individual factors, neglecting the potential interactions between these factors and their impact on the decision to confess or not during an interrogation. Classification and regression tree analyses conducted on a sample of 624 convicted sex offenders showed that certain factors related to the offenders (e.g., personality, criminal career), victims (e.g., sex, relationship to offender), and case (e.g., time of day of the crime) were related to the decision to confess or not during the police interrogation. Several interactions were also observed between these factors. Results will be discussed in light of previous findings and interrogation strategies for sex offenders.

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The study examined 534 hostage and barricade incidents. Its objective was to present an integrated and formalized vision of current conceptualizations of critical incidents to optimize decision making. To this end, logistic regression and recursive partitioning models are presented and compared. In all, 18 distinct static and dynamic individual and situational factors were used to predict various outputs during this type of situation. Results highlight the importance of considering the origin of the emergency call and being barricaded in one's home in the assessment of perpetrator's propensity for violence, the fact that time is not always on the police's side during critical incidents, and the relatively minor importance of hostage taking in the general comprehension of these high-risk events.S ince its very beginnings, the study of hostage and barricade incidents has itself been hostage to an intuitive and empirically fragmentary conceptual framework. This has not only limited innovative thought and the development of new ideas but also handicapped police decision making. In fact, the predictive abilities of law enforcement personnel managing critical incidents have been impaired by both the absence of a formal, integrated vision of the factors that contribute to the conceptualization of these events and the current exclusive reliance on the experience, judgement, and intuition of practitioners working in the field. This lack of decision-making guidance is particularly problematic in the dynamic context of hostage and barricade incidents, which are characterized by a high risk of violence, high-stakes outcomes, time pressure, and limited information. Consequently, there seems to be a need for empirical assistance that can support police decision makers in their efforts to peacefully resolve such complex and volatile situations. This aid can be ensured by quantitatively modeling and subsequently predicting perpetrators' behaviors during critical incidents.