Since 1989 there have been 25% of 266 people convicted due to false confession. Iowa State University (ISU) did a study to see why innocent suspects may confess to a crime. They found that people will confess to illegal activities in order to relieve proximal (short term) consequence while not considering the distal (long term) consequence. ISU performed two experiments on ISU psychology undergraduates and both found that the students would admit to doing some unethical or criminal behavior just in order to get out of short term consequences. In the first experiment, the proximal consequence was the students would be asked to answer a long set of repetitive questions while the distal consequence was having to meet with a police officer a few weeks later to discuss the answers in detail. After this experiment, they found most students shifted their admissions to avoid the repetitive questions. In the second experiment, the proximal consequence was to meet with a police officer immediately after the interview and the distal consequence was to return to the lab in a few weeks to be asked a long set of repetitive questions. Once again, the students tried to veer away from the proximal consequence (meeting with the police officer). These two experiments validate why some people may confess to a crime they didn’t do, just to avoid being interrogated by the police.
This article relates to human behavior. Forensic science is more than just uncovering what happened at a crime scene, it’s also to understand why it occurred. This is a similar idea, understanding why people may falsely confess is important because we can then find an alternate way of questioning people in a way so they don’t need to lie. Understanding this and hopefully changing the approach to questioning will allow innocent suspects to be free and help determine who the real suspect is.
This article was very interesting; however I wish the article provided statistics of how many people avoided the proximal consequences in the two experiments. I think it would have validated the article’s point more.
http://www.forensicmag.com/news/study-examines-why-innocent-suspects-may-confess-crime
5 comments:
There were 3 things that caught my attention in Devon’s article. Firstly, Since 1989 there have been 25% of 266 people convicted due to false confession. Then how ISU performed two experiments on ISU psychology. In the first experiment, students would be asked to answer a long set of repetitive questions while having to meet with a police officer a few weeks later to discuss the answers in detail. In the second experiment, a person must meet with a police officer immediately after the interview and then to return to the lab in a few weeks to be asked a long set of repetitive questions.
As well as this article was written, there were a few flaws. First off, the information is too clumped together. There needs to be some separation by paragraphs. Also, just a little more information on how these experiments could show why innocent people confess to false accusations.
One thing that surprised me was that why a person would plead guilty to something they did not do.
I thought Devon did a very good job summarizing this article. She provided some very interesting facts to draw the readers attention. For example, she explained how ISU performed psychology experiments. During the tests, students would answer repetitive questions. A month later, they would talk to a police office to discuss their answers. The second test was slightly different. A person would have to discuss their answers with an officer immediately after being questioned. They would return to a lab a few weeks after for further repetitive questioning.
Overall, this was a very well written article. However, there were a few things that could have been done better. She could have provided more information and detail about if these are efficient and widely used. Also, the information could have been separated by paragraphs.
I have very surprised that people commonly confess and plead guilty to crimes they did not commit.
I thought that the article that Devon choose was very interesting, with an intriguing topic. I think that Devon did a great job summing up the article and give a brief and clear overview of the article. I also liked how she mad the connection between this article and forensic science. Also I think that her criticism of the article was good.
Although this was a good article I think that there could have been a few adjustments. The information seems to be clumped together a little too much, I think separating it into paragraphs would be better. Also I think that there could have been a little more detail and more examples of cases when this happened. Overall though I thought that this was a great article.
One interesting thing that I learned was that there are some people out there that would plead guilty to something that they never did.
I do not say this about most news articles, but Devon’s article of choice was exceptionally good at grabbing my attention. Before I read this article, I knew very little about psychology. Hungry for more information, I decided to read on. That is why I liked this article. Another reason I liked reading it is because Devon even included her own personal critique at the end of the article (as well as the summary, of course). In addition, I could relate well to this article because I understand what it’s like to get in trouble. Although I’ve never gone to jail before (and hopefully, never will) I still know how punishment feels – absolutely AWFUL.
However, despite the wonderful pros of Devon’s summary, I'm afraid there are some cons as well. First of all, she put the information together a teensy bit too… well, TIGHTLY PACKED LIKE SARDINES. If she just did some double spacing between paragraphs, it would have been a lot easier to read. No offense, but I also think it’s strange how innocent people confess to crimes they didn’t even commit in the first place. SO WHY THE HECK DO THEY CONFESS, THEN? HUH? I don’t get it…
Lastly, I would like to say that this article was a little confusing at first, but when I read the whole thing front to back, it all made sense and I found this summary to be very edifying.
I thought Devon did a good job at giving us statistics in the beginning to make us want to read on. I also believe that she did a good job at describing the Iowa State University experiment. It was good that she mentioned that ISU where they switched the consequences to prove that students try to avoid the proximal consequence.
Devon could have done a better job if she had a more in depth summary. It also would have been better if she mentioned if this study focuses on a specific suspects or a broad range of suspects.
Before reading this article I did not know that 25% of 266 people were convicted due to false confession.
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