Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

The Psychology of False Confession: Research and Theoretical Issues 201
� It is important to distinguish between a false belief and a false memory in relation
to internalized false confession (Gudjonsson, 1997b, 1997c). Internalized
false confessors can be persuaded, or may have convinced themselves,
that they have committed a crime without their developing a recollection
of the offence. This is in my experience what typically happens and is supported
by the work of Ofshe and Leo (1997a, 1997b).
Coerced–internalized false confessions are typically characterized by tentative
expressions, such as ‘I must have’, ‘I think I did’, ‘I probably committed this
crime’ (Ofshe & Leo, 1997a, 1997b).
Critique of the Kassin–Wrightsman Model
There is no doubt that the psychological model of Kassin and Wrightsman
(1985) is very important in furthering our understanding of the nature of
false confessions. I have also found the model helpful in forensic practice and
research, in that it enables one to classify false confessions into meaningful
psychological categories. The theoretical distinction between compliant and internalized
false confessions is the single most important contribution of the
model. The main problem that I have had with the model is that not all compliant
and internalized false confessions are coerced. They may result from stress
or pressure that does not involve coercion by the police. The term coercion is
clearly over-inclusive in the model. The other problem is that those who make
false confessions to protect someone else do not fit well into the model psychologically
and should probably be classified into a separate group. The only way
to overcome the former problem is to increase the number of categories of false
confessions, as Ofshe and Leo (1997a) do, to change the term ‘coercion’ to a
more appropriate term that encompasses most relevant types of false confession
(e.g. ‘pressured–internalized’ and ‘pressured–compliant’ false confessions),
or to leave out the word ‘coerced’ when there is no evidence of coercion. In forensic
practice I use the Kassin–Wrightsman (1985) threefold typology, but leave
out the word ‘coerced’ when there is no evidence of coercion.
McCann (1998) has developed a decision-making conceptual framework for
identifying different types of confession, where confessions are defined according
to different dimensions (e.g. retracted versus non-retracted, true versus
false, voluntary versus coerced, legal culpability). McCann does not specifically
criticize the Kassin–Wrightsman typology, but adds a third type of coerced confession,
which he calls ‘coerced–reactive false confessions’. This is defined as
. . . .when an individual (who may or may not be a criminal suspect) confesses in
order to avoid or escape some coercive action that arises out of a relationship with
one or more individuals other than police (p. 449).
McCann gives as examples peer group pressure (e.g. threats of physical violence)
and an actual case of a battered wife who was allegedly coerced into
making a false confessions to the murder of her child as way of escaping violence
from her husband.