ABSTRACT
Researchers and practitioners alike wonder why the innocent might confess to crimes that carry lengthy prison sentences or life imprisonment (Ofshe and Leo 1997b, 1997a; Kassin, 1997; Gudjonsson, 1992). Though social scientists have studied psychological interrogations and false confessions for almost a century, these questions have not been fully answered. This is largely because the process of interrogation has only recently been studied in a direct and detailed manner. Over the past three decades, researchers have undertaken a variety of types of studies (field, observational, laboratory, documentary) in order to advance scientific knowledge about how interrogation procedures influence suspects’ perceptions and move them from denial to admission. The studies and records of interrogation that have accumulated now make it possible to empirically describe and analyze the psychological process of interrogation and its influence on a suspect’s decision to confess (Ofshe and Leo, 1997a, 1997b).
