Interrogations-and-Confessions-Handbook

Conclusions 623
interviews were generally very short and without any obvious interrogative
pressure and, as a consequence, specific psychological vulnerabilities were of
less importance. Once the pressure in interviews becomes more evident then
psychological vulnerabilities are likely to play a more prominent role in the
suspects’ abilities to resist suggestions and pressure (Gudjonsson, 1999b). The
only mental state factor in the study that predicted a confession was whether
or not the suspect had consumed illicit drugs within 24 hours of arrest. The
most likely explanation of this is that suspects addicted to drugs confessed
more readily than other detainees, because they wanted to expedite their release
from custody (we do not know whether any of these suspects made a false
confession; for the purpose of this book I am assuming the confessions were
all true). As illustrated in this book, on occasion, drug withdrawal in custody
can result in a false confession to a serious crime. In the study, the presence of
a lawyer and a previous experience of imprisonment were highly predictive of
suspects denying any involvement in the crime.
How important confessions are in solving crimes depends primarily upon the
strength of the alternative evidence against suspects. Where the alternative evidence
is strong a confession may add little or nothing to the prosecution case,
although in some cases it does provide important additional information about
motive and intent. It seems from the available studies that confession evidence
is crucial to a significant proportion of criminal cases. Once a suspect has confessed,
even where there is little or no corroborative evidence, the chances of a
conviction are substantial.
It seems that the admission/confession rate is substantially lower in the
USA than it is in England. The difference is in the region of about 15%, although
this figure should be interpreted with caution due to the scarcity of
recent American studies into confession rates. One possible reason for the difference
in the confession rates may relate to the greater impact of the Miranda
rules on the confession rate than the restrictions imposed by PACE. Unlike
the case in America, in England the presence of a legal advisor, or suspects
exercising their right of silence, does not prevent the police from interviewing
them and putting questions to them, which sometimes results in a confession
being obtained. Other factors, including cultural and attitudinal ones, the base
rate of guilty suspects arrested and interrogated and the nature of interrogation
and custodial environment are also undoubtedly important in explaining
cross-cultural differences in confession rates.
RETRACTED AND FALSE CONFESSIONS
It is important to distinguish between proven false confessions, retracted confessions
and disputed confessions that have not been retracted. Confessions
are commonly disputed at trial when there is absence of good independent corroboration.
What proportion of these disputed cases represent genuinely false
confessions is not possible to estimate, but it is likely to be in a minority of
cases. On the other hand, once an apparently credible false confession is given
to the police it is often impossible for the individual concerned to subsequently