Examining Suggestibility and False Confessions in Forensic Psychology

This report provides a briefing on suggestibility and false confessions within the context of forensic psychology, intended for senior police managers. It discusses the phenomenon of false confessions, exploring reasons behind them, such as fear, protection of loved ones, or mental disorders. It examines research on investigative interviews, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of different techniques like the Reid Technique, Cognitive Interview, and PEACE method, with emphasis on the ethical considerations involved. The report also identifies skills needed for effective investigative interviews and factors influencing suspects to make false confessions, including dispositional characteristics, the phenomenology of innocence, and situational stresses. The report concludes with recommendations for ethical practices in police investigations to minimize the risk of false confessions. Desklib offers a wealth of similar student-contributed assignments and study resources.

Introduction to forensic
psychology Suggestibility and
false confession

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Research on investigating interview.......................................................................................4
Strength and weakness of research.........................................................................................4
Skills in investigating techniques...........................................................................................5
Reason for false confession....................................................................................................5
The factor which influences a suspect for a false confession.................................................6
Recommendations..................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Forensic psychology refers to the specialty within psychology which includes the different
characterize activities and can provide professional psychological expertise to the legal and
judicial system. This is the one that can allow a police officer to investigate some crim who
needed to get an understanding of criminal psychology. Here, forensic psychologist includes the
application of psychological theory which assist in better criminal investigative which are
associated with helping to understand criminal behavior and the problem which are associated
with them. There are several times when people get false confessions due to different reasons.
These may include either of fear, to protect their loved ones, due to mental disorders other
sometimes they feel that they have did a crime that is wrong in reality. In this, there is a need to
get ensure the understanding of the suggestibility and false confession which are associated with
taking care of effective response. There is extent about the senior police manager who use those
theroy and psychological implication that can help in getting better help in reducing and
identifying the reason of false confession. This knowledge are delivering to provide and create
awareness about the reason which can lead to create the risk of false confession. Here, the
psychologist provides the information and suggestion to polish in investigating any crime. They
also provide some external support to understand criminal behavior and their understanding. In
this, essay there is a discussion about investigating the crime and interviewing false confessions
which are generally provided by the criminal where a psychologist can use their suggestion and
information to influence the learning that are associated with false confessions (Gaines, (2018)).
MAIN BODY
There is a certain type of people who confess to a crime that they have not committed. There
are a large number of cases in which they falsely confess a crime in which they have not even
been involved in. There are many examples of such types of certain cases in which false
confession has been done due to different reasons. There can also be a chance that some of the
evidence suspect someone who are not correct and due to some circumstances they get an arrest.
Due to long-hour investigation and use of different techniques in the investigation, there is a high
risk of getting false confession. Here, is an example of a young mother who call the polish about
the killing of her children by some individual but due to getting blood spot on the mother cloth
police arrested her. Due to a long investigation, the mother confesses the killing of her child. But

after that she said that to attend in the cremation services she has confessed which is not right.
Such like this type of cases are in large numbers where people have false confessions about the
crime which they have not committed (Filipović, (2022)).
Research on investigating interview
There is a need to research the investigation interview which is highly effective in order
to provide a better and more effective response towards the understanding of the criminal
investigation. This is the one that can lead to creating high impact on ensuring about the
techniques which are generally used by the police to investigate the suspect which has the
purpose to influence them to accept their crime. But include the correct investigation process
where suspect should confess their crime without getting in pressure. But due to use of different
technique, it is not possible to follow all the ethics during investigating interview which creates
ethical consideration and lead to creating the false confession risk. Here, it also includes some
positive confessions but it cannot be ignored about the false confession which occurred due to
using of false investigating techniques of using unethical activities to enable them to confess
their crime. There is a different type of investigation methods which include different techniques
for the investigation of interviewing to suspects. This includes Reid Technique, the cognitive
Interview along with PEACE method (Haney-Caron et. al., (2018)). These are the type of
interview techniques that can be used by the police to investigate the suspect. In this method, the
PEACE method is highly useful to investigating interviews. It is highly effective and allows
police to investigate more easily which enables them to get a higher chance to influence suspect
to confess their crime.
Strength and weakness of research
It is essential for better investigation which can enable police to get better and more
effective response towards the delivery of getting better and effective response towards better
research. Here, research is effective to learn about the positive and negative aspects of
investigation and interview which are associated with taking care of effective response that can
enable them to get a better understanding of individual behavior (Olalere, (2020)).
Strength- Research provides high effectiveness in the investigation which can enable
them to get better learning and understanding of suspect behavior. Research help to understand
the effectiveness of investigating interview which are associated with taking care of effective
response toward the delivery of getting better care (Jones et. al., (2021)). Research also help the

psychologist to get about the investigation process which provokes an individual for a false
confession. It can also help to understand the police behavior during the investigation that can
help in understanding their role in provoking to confess the crime. Research also helps to
improve the knowledge about the investigation procedures and techniques which are highly
effective in creating better understanding of the investigation processes that should be better for
the investigation and have less chances of false confess.
Weaknesses- This can be time taking process where it can also be difficult to understand
the intention of a police officer who is investigating the suspect. There is a higher chance of
researching the techniques for investigating interviews whereas, the problem can be the
investigator's attitude and behavior which can perform a fearful activity that influences the
suspect for false confession (Adams-Quackenbush et. al., (2019)). Research may also need to
ensure through proper investigation of a suspect who intentionally makes false confessions due
to different reason which includes their personal benefits, criminal activity, fear, saving the real
criminal or saving their loved one.
Skills in investigating techniques
There are some of the skills that are needed to provide better-investigating interviews
which investigators individual should possess to conduct the investigating interview more
effectively to influence suspects to confess their crimes. Here, some of the skills may include
credibility and reliability, understanding witness memory, verbal and non-verbal communication,
ability to deal with the barrier during communication like investigative mindset, ability to
manage suspect behavior, affirmative to take care about the concentration to influence and many
more. These are some of the investigative skills which can be effective and allow to get better
help in dealing with the suspect to influence them in getting better and effective output. These
skills can have a high impact on understanding individuals which can influence them in getting
better influence and enable police investigators to get better positive outcomes in dealing with
the suspect to make them confess about the crime (Akca et. al., (2021)).
Reason for false confession
In the past decade, there are a large number of convicted prisoners who has been
identified related by DNA and non-DNA evidence. They have also revealed that Police have
induced false conversations which are lead to cause of false convictions to the innocent. There
are a large number of cases that are like this where many individuals are facing conviction and

are in prison due to false confusion. This creates a psychological impact on the individual which
includes the consequences and introduces the false confession within the criminal justice system.
False confusion is highly effective and can also lead to creating a negative impact on
mental health where policymakers, healthcare professionals and the public highly need to ensure
that it should be improved (Kelly et. al., (2021)). There is a need to minimize the
misunderstanding which leads to cause of false confessions. There is no specific cause of false
confession. Here, policy-induced false confessions can lead to creating a multiple-step process
that includes in the sequence of influence. It can also impact psychologically to an individual
who are suspected and are under investigation interview.
There get various type of cases where suspects are blamed to have the crime and
influence their mindset psychologically. This creates the situation of accepting the crime which
they have also not condemned. It is a matter of investigation where investigating officers use a
different type of methods that create a negative mental impact on the suspect that may lead to
creating a situation to false confession about the crime (Gudjonsson et. al., (2021)).
The factor which influences a suspect for a false confession
There are a factor that can associate with a false confession. This includes dispositional
characteristics which make suspected more reliable than others, the phenomenology of
innocence, and situational factors which are associated with stresses of interrogation and
custody. These are some of the main factors which are highly associated with a false confession.
During the investigation, many suspects are not mentally strong that they can face the
pressure of investigation. This creates a broken motivation and enables them to get influenced
about accepting the crime which has not been done by them and get false confessions about the
crime. There is high number of chances when an individual is not mentally strong and not able to
handle the pressure of police interrogation (Eastwood et. al., (2020)). This can create
developmental disability and lead to create the situation of accepting the crime which has not
been done by them. This also includes false confessions. Due to a variety of reasons, this
includes subnormal intellectual functioning, short attention, low intelligence, poor conceptual or
communication skills.
It has been also researched that developmental disability are also enabled to create the
situation of false confession. This includes cognitive disability where an individual is not able to
interpret the situation and falsely accepted the things which police investigate try to influence

them to accept. This creates the situation of a false concession during police interrogation
(Livingston et. al., (2019)).
Police pressure is also creating the situation of false confession about the crime which has
not been done by the individual. Here, the individual is not psychologically strong and due to this
they are not able to deal with the interrogation and pressure of investigation. This creates the
situation to get rid through the investigation and accepted the crime which has not been done by
them (Jackson et. al., (2021)). This leads to create a higher chance of false confession for an
investigation regarding crime.
Recommendations
There are some of the suggestion which can have high impact on ensuring about the
physhology behing the false confession which can lead to have high impact. Here, police
management have high impact through improvindg and implementing these recommendation in
practices.
It is recommended to use the ethical principle which can be effective and can have a high
ability to implement good and ethical practices while investigating interviews. This can enable
police officers to stay in the boundary and should not perform any unethical practices to
influence suspected and force them for false confessions (Salvati & Houck, (2019)).
It is also recommended to police officers to follow the specific guideline for the
investigation where the rights of the suspect should be respected and should not forcefully
influence them to accept the confession which is regarding any crime that has not been done by
the suspect.
It is also recommended to use good and ethical practices which can have a higher chance
to follow the ethical guideline to respect and dignity of the suspect. It can enable a police officer
to perform their practices ethically where they should collect the evidence by using their skills
and then should not force mentally or physically to the suspect which leads to creating the
situation of false confession (Evans & Lyon, (2019)).
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that there is a need for the investigating
interview which can lead to creating the situation of false confession in some cases. In this, it is
essential to evaluate the interview technique which are not effective and have a higher risk of a

creating situation of false confession. It is also essential to ensure about use of correct techniques
which have a positive outcome and less chance of false confession. In this report, there is a
discussion about the interview techniques for the investigation. There is also a discussion about
research strengths and weaknesses along with a recommendation for good practices. There is
also discussion about the skills which should be possessed by investigating officer. This report
also includes type of false confession and factors which can influence for a false confession.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adams-Quackenbush, N. M., Horselenberg, R., & van Koppen, P. J. (2019). Where bias begins:
A snapshot of police officers’ beliefs about factors that influence the investigative
interview with suspects. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 34(4), 373-380.
Akca, D., Larivière, C. D., & Eastwood, J. (2021). Assessing the efficacy of investigative
interviewing training courses: A systematic review. International Journal of Police
Science & Management, 23(1), 73-84.
Eastwood, J., Dunk, M., & Akca, D. (2020). Assessing the Diagnosticity of a Persuasion-Based
and a Dialogue-Based Interrogation Approach. Journal of Police and Criminal
Psychology, 1-7.
Evans, A. D., & Lyon, T. D. (2019). The effects of the putative confession and evidence
presentation on maltreated and non-maltreated 9-to 12-year-olds’ coached concealment
of a minor transgression. Journal of experimental child psychology, 188, 104674.
Filipović, L. (2022). The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Miscommunication in UK Police
Interviews and US Police Interrogations. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 1-
15.
Gaines, P. (2018). Discourse processes and topic management in false confession contamination
by police investigators. International Journal of Speech, Language & the Law, 25(2).
Gudjonsson, G. H., Gonzalez, R. A., & Young, S. (2021). The risk of making false confessions:
The role of developmental disorders, conduct disorder, psychiatric symptoms, and
compliance. Journal of Attention Disorders, 25(5), 715-723.
Haney-Caron, E., Goldstein, N. E., & Mesiarik, C. (2018). Self-perceived likelihood of false
confession: A comparison of justice-involved juveniles and adults. Criminal Justice and
Behavior, 45(12), 1955-1976.
Jackson, N. A., Pate, M., & Campbell, K. M. (2021). Prison and post-release experiences of
innocent inmates. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 30(10), 1347-1365.
Jones, A. M., Blinkhorn, A. M., & Hawley, A. M. (2021). Sensitivity to Psychologically
Coercive Interrogations: A Comparison of Instructions and Expert Testimony to
Improve Juror Decision-Making. Journal of Forensic Psychology Research and
Practice, 21(4), 373-394.
Kelly, C. E., Meehan, N., Mcclary, M., & Jenaway, E. M. (2021). Just a Normal Conversation:
Investigative Interviews in a County Jail. Criminal justice and behavior, 48(8), 1166-
1184.
Livingston, T. N., Rerick, P. O., Villalobos, J. G., & Davis, D. (2019). Deception Induced
Confession: Strategies of Police Interrogators and Their Lay Collaborators. The
Palgrave handbook of deceptive communication, 747-767.
Olalere, F. A. (2020). Case study account of causes and legal implication of wrongful
conviction. Nnamdi Azikiwe University Journal of International Law and
Jurisprudence, 11(2), 122-134.
Salvati, J. M., & Houck, S. C. (2019). Examining the causes and consequences of confession-
eliciting tactics during interrogation. Journal of Applied Security Research, 14(3), 241-
256.