Would you ever confess to a crime you did not commit? Defend your answer using evidence from empirical research.

Would you ever confess to a crime you did not commit? Defend your answer using evidence from empirical research.

I would like to believe I would never confess to a crime I didn't commit but as this course has taught me, easily over 50% of people could be made to falsely confess to a crime they didn't commit. It has been shown that innocent people are more likely to waive their right to an attorney than guilty people. People believe that their own innocence will protect them. Research by Kassin has shown that it does not.

The Innocent Project has cited approximately 25% of their cases have involved false confessions given by a suspect that were legally obtained meaning they weren't threaten or beaten out of them. Police use something called the Reid technique which consists of 9 steps designed to extract a confession from an unwilling suspect.

This method includes interrupting any effort to deny the claims, the interviewer showing sympathy and offering alternative views to the crime such as it was an accident. It's also important to understand that Police can mislead you and tell you they have evidence against you such as finger prints or a witness as long as they don't fabricate evidence and they stay within the law.

The combination of overwhelming evidence with an aggressive and relentless interrogation technique, leads to a high number of confessions but the downside is whether their true criminals or just saying they are. We now know that people sometimes confess to crimes they didn't commit, and police interrogation tactics can either increase or decrease that possibility.