Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

560 A Psychology of Interrogations and Confessions
point Clemmie had become very important to him). He claims that it was his
fear of Sheriff Boutwell that resulted in his refusal to testify at his trial.
Police officers involved in his case appear to have achieved cooperation from
Lucas by playing on his poor self-esteem and by shaping his behaviours with
positive reinforcement. For example, according to Texas Ranger Ryan (personal
communication), the strategy he used when interviewing Lucas was to tell him
that he (Ryan) was not very bright and needed Lucas’s help to solve the murders
(he reportedly told Lucas ‘I’m not very bright I guess and I need your
help’). Similarly, in the first Orange Socks confession on 22 June 1983, Sheriff
Boutwell comments at the beginning of the interview ‘Henry, I’m, of course,
told that you have been cooperating with these other officers, and I appreciate
it’. Lucas’s cooperation with producing confessions was therefore from the beginning
reinforced by comments of social approval. This was probably the first
time in Lucas’s life that he was given social approval by people in authority,
which probably enhanced his sense of self-importance. Later on the positive
reinforcement for making confessions became much more extensive and Lucas
was provided with various privileges within the jail (e.g. plenty of social contact,
travel, coffee, cigarettes, cable television, immense attention, notoriety
status).
At the time of making the Orange Socks confessions I am satisfied that
Lucas was vulnerable to making a false confession due to a combination of
the following factors.
1. Persons with personality disorder have been shown to be particularly susceptible
to making false confessions to the police during custodial interrogation
(Sigurdsson & Gudjonsson, 1996). They seem relatively unperturbed
by the fact that they are lying to the police and interfering with the course
of justice. In this research study three personality factors significantly differentiated
the ‘false confessors’ from the other offenders: a low score on
the Gough Socialisation Scale and elevated scores on the Gudjonsson Compliance
Scale and EPQ Neuroticism scale. Lucas’s scores on all three tests
are in that predicted direction and suggested a vulnerability to making
a false confession. The finding that he did not prove unduly suggestible
is not of primary importance in view of the nature of the confessions he
made (i.e. they were apparently not of the coerced–internalized type where
suggestibility is of particular importance).
2. Lucas had already begun making a large number of confessions, some of
which were to fictitious murders invented by Texas Ranger Ryan, who had
become sceptical about Mr Lucas’s confessions and attempted to test their
reliability. Texas Ranger Ryan told me that the 60 original confessions were
not verified and appeared to have been made up by Lucas. By the time he
was interviewed by Sheriff Boutwell about the Orange Socks murder, Lucas
had learned the powerful immediate effects of making confessions (i.e. the
officers were interested in him, paid attention to him, expressed a need for
his help, moved him to more comfortable surroundings). This placed him in
a confession mode, irrespective of whether or not the confessions were true
or false. There is evidence from the false confessions that Lucas made to