Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

They state:
The Psychology of False Confession: Research and Theoretical Issues 183
Many confessed criminal offenders will subsequently deny their guilt and allege
that they either did not confess or else were forced or induced to do so by physical
abuse, threats, or promise of leniency. Occasionally, the defendant in a criminal
case will even go so far as to say that he was compelled to sign a written confession
without reading it or having had it read to him, or that he was forced to place his
signature on a blank sheet of paper and all that appears above it was inserted
later (p. 375).
In the third edition of the book, Inbau, Reid and Buckley (1986) used the words
‘Most confessed criminal offenders . . . ’ (p. 176). In the fourth edition the word
‘most’ has been replaced with the word ‘many’. The reason for this change
is not explained. The most likely explanation is that Inbau, Reid and Buckley
(1986) overstated or exaggerated the position and this was corrected in the later
edition. It is important to note that no empirical evidence is provided in either
edition of the book for the claims made about retractions; it is undoubtedly
based on the authors’ impressions rather than empirical data. Support for this
comes from the following statement:
In our experience, the vast majority of retracted confessions are, in fact, trustworthy
statements coming from the person who committed the crime (p. 437).
Inbau, Reid and Buckley (1986) do not consider the possibility that anybody who
retracts a previously made confession could possibly be innocent. They work on
the misguided assumption that their recommended tactics and techniques never
induce an innocent person to falsely confess. There are sufficient numbers of
proven cases of innocent persons retracting false confessions to demonstrate
that this belief of Inbau, Reid and Buckley is unfounded. What their statement
does highlight is the fact that criminal suspects very commonly retract their
previously made confession to the police and give various excuses for having
done so. Inbau, Reid and Buckley are wrong to assume that all such retractions
involve guilty people claiming to be innocent.
In the more recent edition of their book, Inbau et al. (2001) do accept that
false confessions occur:
There is no question that interrogations have resulted in false confessions from
innocent suspects (p. 411).
However, when citing a case involving a false confession, Inbau et al. do not
cite a case involving police coercion. Instead, they cite a case of a 16-year-old
youth who had been persuaded by his father to confess to a murder the father
had committed. This suggests that Inbau et al. are still reluctant to accept
that false confession may occur as a result of interrogation relying on the Reid
Technique.
The process of denial may continue to operate after people have been convicted.
Kennedy and Grubin (1992) found that convicted sex offenders who
pleaded guilty to their offence at the time of their trial begin to deny their offence
once they are in prison. This process of denial may serve some important