What Makes Sex Offenders Confess? An Exploratory Study

Faller, Kathleen Coulborn; Birdsall, William C.; Henry, James A.; Vandervort, Frank E.; Silverschanz, Peregrine

doi:10.1300/j070v10n04_03

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 10 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…The finding of a positive relationship of suspect age to suspect confession replicates results from several general crime studies (Baldwin & McConville, 1980), and also a similar finding by Faller et al (2001) for child sexual abuse. The relationship may reflect the inexperience of young suspects with the criminal justice system, greater ability of older suspects to cope with police interrogations (Leiken, 1970), older suspects' greater awareness of their rights (Baldwin & McConville, 1980), detectives' greater ability to convince younger suspects that confessing would be to their benefit, or all the above.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Suspect Confession of Child Sexual Abuse to Investigators

et al. 2010

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Increasing the number of suspects who give true confessions of sexual abuse serves justice and reduces the burden of the criminal justice process on child victims. With data from four communities, this study examined confession rates and predictors of confession of child sexual abuse over the course of criminal investigations (final N ¼ 282). Overall, 30% of suspects confessed partially or fully to the crime. This rate was consistent across the communities and is very similar to the rates of suspect confession of child sexual abuse found by previous research, although lower than that from a study focused on a community with a vigorous practice of polygraph testing. In a multivariate analysis, confession was more likely when suspects were younger and when more evidence of abuse was available, particularly child disclosure and corroborative evidence. These results suggest the difficulty of obtaining confession but also the value of methods that facilitate child disclosure and seek corroborative evidence, for increasing the odds of confession.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

“…Second, their research represents the only in-depth examination of the explanatory factors of confession (Faller, Birdsall, Henry, Vandervort, & Silverschanz, 2001;Staller & Faller, 2009). These researchers considerably detailed this county's investigation methods, particularly via a book-length case study (Staller & Faller, 2009).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Suspect Confession of Child Sexual Abuse to Investigators

et al. 2010

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“…Excluded studies from the United Kingdom and Australia were: Baldwin (1993, see also, Baldwin 1992, Bull and Soukara (2010), Dixon (2007), Griffiths (2008), McConville and Baldwin (1982), McGurk et al (1993), Medford et al (2003), Moston et al (1992), Pearse (2009), Pearse and Gudjonsson (1999), Softley (1980), Stephenson and Moston (1994), Walsh and Milne (2008), and Willis et al (1988). Excluded studies from the United States and Canada included: Cassell and Hyman (1996), DesLauriers-Varin et al (2011), Faller et al (2001, Feld (2006Feld ( , 2013, Lippert et al (2010), Medalie et al (1968), Neubauer (1974), New Haven Study (1967, Reiss and Black (1967), Seeburger and Wettick (1967), Vera Institute Study (1967), and Witt (1973).…”

Section: Selected Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accusatorial and information-gathering interrogation methods and their effects on true and false confessions: a meta-analytic review

et al. 2014

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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.

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“…Research has shown the need for trauma-specific instruments in order to identify these symptoms and has also shown that standard assessments or generic measurements of distress are not adequate to identify the symptoms of trauma. This is particularly true for children and adolescents who have been sexually abused (2, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14). Most measures that have been developed for use with traumatized children and adolescents have focused on specific types of trauma or specific areas of trauma-related distress, such as sexual trauma and sexual problems, for example, the Children's Impact of Traumatic Events Scale (CITES-R) (15, 16), the Child Sexual Behavior Inventory (CBSI) (17) and the Sexual Abuse Fear Evaluation (SAFE) (18), or for dissociation, for example, the Child Dissociative Checklist (CDC) (19) and the Adolescent Dissociative Experience Scale (A-DES) (14).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Korean Version of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children: Psychometric Properties and the Connection to Trauma among Korean Children and Adolescents

Chung

2014

J Korean Med Sci

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The purpose of the present study was to develop a Korean version of the trauma symptom checklist for children (TSCC) and to examine its reliability and validity for screening posttraumatic stress symptoms. A normative group of 405 children and adolescents aged 8 to 16 yr participated in the study. A test-retest procedure was conducted with 76 participants from the normative group after 4 weeks. In the traumatized group, 73 children and adolescents of the same age from the Child Sexual Abuse Treatment Center were included. Good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) for the total scale (0.95, ranging 0.79-0.85 on the clinical scales) and test-retest reliability for the total scale (r=0.91, ranging 0.71-0.87 on the clinical scales) were found. Confirmatory 6-factor analysis explained 51.1% of the variance. Other measures such as concurrent or discriminative validity were also shown to be satisfactory. In conclusion, the Korean version of TSCC has been shown to be a screening instrument with satisfactory psychometric qualities that is capable of identifying trauma symptoms among children and adolescents who have self-reported experiencing trauma or for whom clinicians have identified traumatic experiences.

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What Makes Sex Offenders Confess? An Exploratory Study

Cited by 18 publications

References 10 publications

Suspect Confession of Child Sexual Abuse to Investigators

Suspect Confession of Child Sexual Abuse to Investigators

Accusatorial and information-gathering interrogation methods and their effects on true and false confessions: a meta-analytic review

The Korean Version of the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children: Psychometric Properties and the Connection to Trauma among Korean Children and Adolescents

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