Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Why do Suspects Confess? Theories 123
work attempts to show that the unconscious compulsion to confess plays an
important part in religion, myths, art, language and other social activities,
including crime.
Reik relies heavily on Freud’s concepts of the id, ego and superego. Within
this framework a confession is construed as ‘an attempt at reconciliation that
the superego undertakes in order to settle the quarrel between the ego and
the id’ (p. 216). Here the superego is seen to play a very important part in the
need of the individual to confess. If the superego remains silent there develops
a strong feeling of guilt and need for self-punishment. This may result in a
‘compulsion’ to confess, and on occasion false confession.
Freud’s (1916) theory also suggests that some people may commit crime as a
way of relieving ‘an unconscious sense of guilt for which there seems no cause’
(Van Velsen, 1999, p. 65). This includes making a false confession to the police,
which is a crime in itself. There is also the likelihood that strong feelings of
guilt may on occasions cause criminals to exaggerate the nature and extent of
their crime.
The development of the feeling of guilt after transgression and the unconscious
need for self-punishment are seen as universal characteristics of the
individual and have an important impact upon his or her emotions and behaviour.
It is only after the person has confessed that the ego begins to accept
the emotional significance of the deed. For the criminal this is different to the
intellectual acceptance of the deed, which always precedes its emotional acceptance.
According to Reik’s psychoanalytic model, emotional acceptance of the
criminal act may take years to process. It is only after having confessed that
the offender has made the first step back into society. A confession serves the
function of relieving the person from the feeling of guilt.
Rogge (1975), like Reik, argues that confessions are based on feelings of
guilt. He goes a step further and suggests that guilt feelings are made up of
two components, which are fear of losing love and fear of retaliation:
Those who are guilty of some criminal offense are under such anxiety lest they
have lost love and lest there will be retaliation that they usually confess (p. 227).
Berggren (1975) presents a psychological model that highlights the need of
the individual to confess to his or her transgression of social norms. People’s
knowledge of their transgression produces a sense of guilt, which is experienced
as oppressive and depressing. The confession produces a sense of relief, which
has important cathartic effects. For a satisfactory cathartic effect to occur the
confession has to be to a person in authority, such as a priest or policeman.
Until recently, no empirical studies had looked at the role of feelings of guilt
in facilitating a confession among criminals. A study carried out by myself
into the electrodermal reactivity of Icelandic criminals, policemen and clergymen
during a ‘lie detection’ experiment (Gudjonsson, 1979) indicates that there
may be important group differences in relation to guilt following transgression.
Criminals were found to be least physiologically responsive to deception
and clergymen the most. This suggests that criminals, perhaps by virtue of
early conditioning, or by habituation, no longer suffer the pangs of conscience