Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Why do Suspects Confess? Empirical Findings 143
frequency of confession. With regard to English studies, Mitchell (1983) found
no significant variation in the confession rate for defendants up to the age of 50
years. After the age of 50 markedly fewer defendants confessed. More recently,
Moston, Stephenson and Williamson (1992) did not find age to be a significant
discriminator in their study between confessors and deniers. Evans (1993) did
not find a significant difference in admission rate for the three age groups:
10–13, 14 and 15–16 years.
The differences between the studies with regard to age are difficult to interpret.
Whether they are caused by differences in the measurement of ‘confession’
or sampling bias, as Neubauer (1974) speculates, remains to be seen. The findings
of Moston, Stephenson and Williamson (1992) and Pearse et al. (1998)
indicate that age should not be considered in isolation from other salient variables,
which may act as important intervening variables in their association
with confession.
Gender
Approximately 85% of persons arrested and detained at police stations in
England are male (Gudjonsson et al., 1993; Moston, Stephenson & Williamson,
1992; Phillips & Brown, 1998). Moston, Stephenson and Williamson (1992) and
Pearse et al. (1998) found no gender differences in their studies with regard to
the rate of admissions or denials. However, in the large sample study by Phillips
and Brown (1998) a significant gender difference was found, with females confessing
more commonly than males (the admission rate of females was 73%,
compared with 52% of males).
Ethnic Differences
Pearse et al. (1998) specifically analysed ethnic background and the confession
rate. Out of a total sample of 160 detainees, 73% were Caucasian and 27% were
from ethnic minorities, primarily Afro-Caribbean. The confession rate for the
Caucasian detainees was 62%, in contrast to 49% for the ethnic minority detainees.
This difference failed to reach statistical significance. However, among
a much larger sample, Phillips and Brown (1998) found that the admission rates
for whites, blacks and Asians were 58, 48 and 44%, respectively. The Caucasian
detainees were significantly more likely to provide a confession than the black
or Asian detainees. Interestingly, black and Asian detainees were significantly
more likely than the whites to request legal advice. This may partly explain
the difference in the confession rate, except that when this variable was entered
into the logistic regression analysis along with other variables there still
remained a significant difference between the black and white detainees in
the confession rate. This is in spite of the fact that black detainees have been
found to be more suggestible than white detainees on psychometric testing
(Gudjonsson, Rutter & Clare, 1995). This lower confession rate may reflect ethnic
differences in relation to attitudes towards the police and the greater use
of legal advisers (Phillips & Brown, 1998). Interestingly, in the famous New
Haven study (Wald et al., 1967), white suspects were no more likely to confess
than African–American suspects.