Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Why do Suspects Confess? Empirical Findings 147
for suspected sexual offenders was 89.3%, in contrast to 52.5% for non-sexual
offenders. Suspects also appeared to confess more readily to property offences
(76%) than to violent offences (64%), which is consistent with the findings of
Neubauer (1974).
Neubauer (1974) argues that the main reason for the greater number of confessions
among alleged property offenders than other offenders relates to the
nature of the evidence that the police have at the time of the interrogation.
He states that with regard to property offences there is more often forensic
evidence (e.g. fingerprints) to link the suspect with the alleged offence than in
non-property offences. This means that during interrogation the police have
more persuasive evidence to convince the suspect that denials are futile. The
position may be somewhat different with regard to sexual offenders in that
there could be special psychological reasons that facilitate their confessionmaking
behaviour. This point will be taken up again later in this chapter when
discussing the results from a recent Icelandic study into factors that may facilitate
or inhibit confessing among criminals.
Sigurdsson and Gudjonsson (1994) found among Icelandic prison inmates
the highest confession rate was obtained for traffic violators (95%) and drug offenders
(94%), whereas the lowest rate was found for sex offenders (83%). The
authors argued that these findings could be explained by the fact that in
the first two categories the offenders are typically caught in the commission of
the offence, whereas sexual offenders are very rarely apprehended at the time of
committing the offence. In another Icelandic study, Gudjonsson and Sigurdsson
(2000) compared the confession rate of violent offenders, rapists and child molesters.
The highest rate was found for child molesters (83%) and lowest for
rapists (61%). The confession rate of violent offenders fell in between the other
two groups (77%). These findings confirm the findings of Nugent and Kroner
(1996) that rapists confess less readily to their crime than child molesters.
The study by Moston, Stephenson and Williamson (1992) found no significant
differences in confession rates between offence types (offences against the
person versus property offences). These authors argue that the previous significant
findings may be an artifact of the studies’ faulty methodology, because
they did not take into account possible inter-associations between case characteristics.
This is undoubtedly a valid point and should be carefully considered
in future research into confessions.
Seriousness of the Offence
A number of studies have shown that suspects confess less readily to serious
than non-serious offences (Evans, 1993; Irving & McKenzie, 1989; Moston,
Stephenson & Williamson, 1992; Phillips & Brown, 1998). For example, in the
Phillips–Brown (1998) study suspects in the less serious cases confessed more
often (72%) than those suspected of ‘moderately’ (49%) and ‘very serious’ (46%)
offences. However, Phillips and Brown point out that this difference was accounted
for by interactions with other variables, such as greater access to legal
advice in serious cases and the improved strength of evidence against the suspect.
The relative lack of incentive among suspects to confess to serious crimes