Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

184 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
psychological functions (Salter, 1988) and is also undoubtedly related to the
hard time that sex offenders are given in prison by other inmates (Thornton,
1987).
There is indication from the outcomes in Crown Court Trials that defendants
commonly dispute their confession, particularly in a large city such as London.
For example, in the study by Baldwin and McConville (1980), which was quoted
in some detail Chapter 2, about 10% of the defendants assessed in Birmingham
and 24% of those in the London sample pleaded ‘not guilty’ at their trial after
having provided the police with a written confession. Taking into account both
verbal and written confessions, over 25% of those who pleaded not guilty at
their trial in the two cities had verbal and written confessions recorded against
them. Not surprisingly, verbal confessions were much more frequently disputed
at the trial than written confessions. Kalven and Zeisel (1966), in an American
study, found that about 20% of confessions are disputed when cases go to court.
Although not pleading guilty cannot be directly equated with a retraction of
the confession, these results support the argument that a sizeable proportion of
defendants in criminal trials retract their previously made confessions. There
may be significant differences between cities and countries in the extent to
which defendants do this. The implications of the differences in the figures between
London and Birmingham are not discussed by Baldwin and McConville.
There may also be changes over time. My impression is that, with the courts
in England more commonly admitting psychological evidence, confessions are
increasingly being disputed (Gudjonsson, 1999a).
THE INNOCENT PLEADING GUILTY
It would be expected that suspects who falsely confess would retract their confession
before their case went to trial. However, there is evidence that some
defendants in criminal trials may plead guilty to offences they did not commit
(Bottoms & McClean, 1976; Dell, 1971; Leo & Ofshe, 2001). How often this happens
is not known but the results from Dell’s (1971) important survey of female
prisoners in Holloway Prison indicates that ‘inconsistent pleading’ was a major
problem in the lower courts in the early 1970s.
Dell (1971) found that of 527 women tried at Magistrates’ Courts, 106 (20%)
had claimed to the researchers that they were innocent of the offence with
which they were charged. Of these 106 women 56 (53%) pleaded guilty in court.
Dell refers to these women as ‘inconsistent pleaders’. She compared them with
a control group of 47 women who claimed to be innocent and pleaded not guilty.
The ‘inconsistent pleaders’ were found to be younger than the other women,
but both groups had similar social and medical backgrounds. Four further differences
between the two groups emerged.
1. Inconsistent pleaders were more commonly charged with offences related to
public disorder, such as soliciting and drunkenness, than the control group.
2. They were less commonly legally represented at court.