Forced to Confess (just how often does it happen?)

I just finished watching an interesting pbs documentary called "The Confessions".

Why would four innocent men confess to a brutal crime they didn't commit? In this clip from "The Confessions," one of the "Norfolk Four" describes the experience of recording his confession. Watch "The Confessions" on air and online Tuesday, Nov. 9. In "The Confessions," FRONTLINE producer Ofra Bikel investigates the conviction of four Navy sailors for the rape and murder of a Norfolk, Va., woman in 1997.

The entire movie can be seen HERE or on NETFLIX

Also on PBS there are some good articles about how this kind of thing happens quite often. Here is an interesting quote from THIS ARTICLE.

False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications Richard A. Leo, PhD, JD In the past two decades, hundreds of convicted prisoners have been exonerated by DNA and non-DNA evidence, revealing that police-induced false confessions are a leading cause of wrongful conviction of the innocent. In this article, empirical research on the causes and correlates of false confessions is reviewed. After a description of the three sequential processes that are responsible for the elicitation of false confessions—misclassification, coercion, and contamination—the three psychologically distinct types of false confession (voluntary, compliant, and persuaded) are discussed along with the consequences of introducing false-confession evidence in the criminal justice system. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of empirical research for reducing the number of false confessions and improving the accuracy of confession evidence that is introduced against a defendant at trial. J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 37:332– 43, 2009

Makes me wonder just how many innocent people are co-erst into confessing to something, just so they can say they are actually doing their job.

Seems to me that this tactic is nothing but a form of torture on American Citizens and is Legal.

I have a friend who is a police officer and one time he gloated about how good he is at interrogation saying to me "By the time I'm done with them, they will think that if they just confess, I will give them my first born daughter and anything they say would never be used against them."

They are legally and encouraged to Lie in order to get a confession, and use the "by any means possible" tactic.

So has anyone experienced this?

Oh and one last thing. ALWAYS get a LAWYER before talking with Authorities about anything, no matter what they tell you, you are a suspect.

AMERICA: Guilty until proven innocent.

Derren Brown did this in one of his tv shows (the show is called the experiments). He made a man confess to a murder that didn't even happen, by using hypnotism and suggestion.

He also made a man shoot another man in a crowded place, to prove that the mk-ultra stuff can be done

reply to post by WeSbO


I'd be interested in seeing that. do you happen to have a link to an article or video?

Interesting...I will read and watch further when I have a chance.

But even more interesting I have been reading about a case called the "Fairbanks Four" which is now in the hands of the Innocence Project.. I thought your thread would be about this...

The Fairbanks Four.

In this case ^^, the alleged confession happened after 11 hours of interrogation of an extremely intoxicated teenager who was clueless on his rights or what was happening because he was.....intoxicated.....

IMO....the law should state that one should never be interrogated while under the influence of a substance.

Many factors involved in obtaining false confessions......

reply to post by greeneyedleo


Thank you for this.

Derren brown is brilliant (I find anyway) he does everything from illusions, magic, suggestion, hypnotism. And also explains how alot of the stuff is done, he is english and has done like about 100 shows.

By searching derren brown on google and youtube you will already find quite a bit of stuff.

His shows name at the moment is called "the experiments"

The real good thing about him is that he doesn't believe in psychics and things like that and goes to great lengths to prove that somethings are frauds.

Here is his wiki page : en.wikipedia.org...

edit : Personally I have learnt alot about psychology, and thought processes by watching his shows.

About ten years ago, someone I know was being accused of stealing a piece of military equipment. He was brought down to CID, interrogated, and took 3 lie detector tests and was told he failed all three. CID went to their home, searched through EVERYTHING, looking for a piece of equipment that was the size of a car. They emptied drawers, closets, shoe boxes, etc, and I do mean everything!!! They left the house a mess. They brought him back to CID and continued to coerce him into confessing, for hours and hours. They said they wouldn't stop until he confessed and that they could outlast him and it would stop immediately once he confessed.

Thankfully, he didn't break and confess to something he didn't do. He was able to go home, but the threat of arrest loomed months and months It was about a year later when he found out they dropped the case. A disgruntled soldier who was mad because he got a low review on his yearly performance review thought by accusing this guy of stealing something, he could get back at him. This guy confessed and was kicked out of the military for what he did.

There was no equipment missing when he was accused, and they lied to him when they told him he failed 3 lie detector tests. I wonder what would have happened if they had made him confess?

Just finished watching the show. I had never heard of this case (but I do not live in America neither). It's just amazing (in a bad way) !!! If that happened to me my life goal would be making that detective Ford fall. I wonder how many people are really innocent and in prison.

In France you can demand your questioning to be fully recorded from A to Z and even filmed... Actually I even thought it was mandatory in most countries! It should be, it would solve the false confession problem !!!!

Today I say that I would never break and confess to a crime I have not committed, but in reality it must be very hard not to, after more than 10 hours of no food nor drink, being sat down in the same chair, been told that you are going to die, extremly stressful.

I mean why do they do lie detectors if at no time they are taken into account... Very unfair, you fail the test you're done, you pass the test, it is forgotten and you're still done. No logic in that justice...

reply to post by WeSbO


My thoughts exactly.

I just really never thought of it like this before. I too am curious as to how many innocent people are in jail or "worse".

Another interesting scenario would be when a person with some "power" or "influence" commits a crime such as "murder", is this the type of tactic used to make it so someone else goes down instead of them. Even if they were to be "questioned" do you think the "law enforcement agent" would use this tactic on the person of "power" and "influence"?

No way. They would get caught. So they just pin it on someone else using these tactics.

Another interesting note would be how "children" can be influenced in saying they were "molested" by someone when they never were. Children would "break" a lot easier, (though the tactic would be different)