Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

194 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
confession. Although Fellows never confessed to the murder of the debtcollector,
extracts from his book (Fellows, 1986) give an important illustration
of the types of interrogation technique and psychological factor that can result
in a false confession in vulnerable individuals.
By this time, the adrenalin was flowing and I could feel the sensation of fear
creeping upon me. What on earth is happening? I thought to myself. They wouldn’t
invent things like this (p. 15).
The fear grew as Mounsey started to say things like, ‘We know you’ve done
it, lad. Why don’t you get it off your chest? We know you didn’t really mean to
kill him.’ As I continued to plead my innocence, he became more determined. He
started shouting and banging his fist upon the table. By this time fear had totally
engulfed me and I just broke down. I could not control my emotions. As I tried
to fight the tears back, they just kept on flowing. Deep shock set in and I was
inwardly fighting to get words out of my mouth (p. 15).
Six hours of intense questioning and still they didn’t believe a word I said. All I
repeated throughout that time was that I had never met the man and that I had
absolutely nothing to do with the offence. By now signs of tiredness and frustration
appeared in both their faces and voices. The tension mounted and they became
more irate. We had gone full circle and were back to the more aggressive style
of injecting fear by shouting accusations and desk-banging with clenched fists.
This approach certainly worked to raise the level of fear within me, but if you are
innocent, how can you confess to something you haven’t done (p. 18).
Undoubtedly, there are a number of different psychological reasons why people
confess to crimes they have not committed. Based on observations of anecdotal
cases reported in the literature, and psychological theories of attitude
change, Kassin and Wrightsman (1985) and Wrightsman and Kassin (1993)
suggest three psychologically distinct types of false confession. These they call
the ‘voluntary’, the ‘coerced–compliant’ and the ‘coerced–internalized’ types respectively.
Kassin and Wrightsman discuss these types as if they are mutually
exclusive. As will be discussed below, I shall argue that in some cases there may
be a certain overlap between two or more of these psychological types.
Voluntary False Confessions
Voluntary false confessions are offered by individuals without any external
pressure from the police. Commonly these individuals go voluntarily to the police
station and inform the police that they have committed the crime in question.
They may have read about the crime in a newspaper or seen it reported on
television. Alternatively, no crime may have been committed and the individual
may be deliberately misleading the police, or believe mistakenly that he or she
has committed a crime.
Kassin and Wrightsman (1985) give the following reasons why people voluntarily
give a false confession.
1. A morbid desire for notoriety. That is, the individual has a pathological
need to become infamous, even if it means having to face the prospect of
punishment, including imprisonment. Kassin and Wrightsman use the fact
that over 200 people confessed falsely to the famous Lindbergh kidnapping