False confession

A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interrogation techniques. When some degree of coercion is involved, studies have found that subjects with low intelligence or with mental disorders are more likely to make such confessions.^[1]: 116 Young people are particularly vulnerable to confessing, especially when stressed, tired, or traumatized, and have a significantly higher rate of false confessions than adults. Hundreds of innocent people have been convicted, imprisoned, and sometimes sentenced to death after confessing to crimes they did not commit – but years later, have been exonerated.^[2] It was not until several shocking false confession cases were publicized in the late 1980s, combined with the introduction of DNA evidence, that the extent of wrongful convictions began to emerge – and how often false confessions played a role in these.^[3]

Although most false confessions are coerced, some are voluntary. While coerced confessions have long been considered too unreliable to produce valid convictions, more sophisticated psychological interrogation methods may also produce false confessions.^[4][5]