Police-induced confessions, risk factors, and recommendations: looking ahead.

Reviewing the literature on police-induced confessions, we identified suspect characteristics and interrogation tactics that influence confessions and their effects on juries. We concluded with a call for the mandatory electronic recording of interrogations and a consideration of other possible reforms. The preceding commentaries make important substantive points that can lead us forward-on the effects of videotaping of interrogations on case dispositions; on the study of non-custodial methods, such as the controversial Mr. Big technique; and on an analysis of why confessions, once withdrawn, elicit such intractable responses compared to statements given by child and adult victims. Toward these ends, we hope that this issue provides a platform for future research aimed at improving the diagnostic value of confession evidence.

Police-induced confessions: risk factors and recommendations.

Recent DNA exonerations have shed light on the problem that people sometimes confess to crimes they did not commit. Drawing on police practices, laws concerning the admissibility of confession evidence, core principles of psychology, and forensic studies involving multiple methodologies, this White Paper summarizes what is known about police-induced confessions. In this review, we identify suspect characteristics (e.g., adolescence; intellectual disability; mental illness; and certain personality traits), interrogation tactics (e.g., excessive interrogation time; presentations of false evidence; and minimization), and the phenomenology of innocence (e.g., the tendency to waive Miranda rights) that influence confessions as well as their effects on judges and juries. This article concludes with a strong recommendation for the mandatory electronic recording of interrogations and considers other possibilities for the reform of interrogation practices and the protection of vulnerable suspect populations.