Why do people confess to crimes they did not commit? And surely this must be a rare
phenomenon? In fact it happens all the time. Psychologist Saul Kassin is the world's leading
expert on false confessions - why innocents confess how interrogators force false confessions
and why we all believe them.This conclusive and comprehensive book reveals the psychology
behind why innocent men and women intensely stressed and befuddled by the promises threats
trickery and deception of a police interrogation are duped into confession no matter how
horrific the crime. Featuring riveting case studies highly original research work done in
tandem with the Innocence Project and quotes from individuals who confessed to crimes they did
not commit Duped tells the story of how this happens how the system turns a blind eye and
how to make it stop. Starting in the 1980's Dr. Kassin pioneered the scientific study of
police interrogations and confessions. At that time he distinguished three types of false
confessions: voluntary in which people claim responsibility for crimes they did not commit
without outside prompting or pressure compliant in which the suspect capitulates to escape a
stressful in-custody situation avoid physical harm or legal punishment or gain a promised or
implied reward and internalized in which innocent but psychologically vulnerable suspects
become confused lost their grip on reality and come to believe that they committed the crime
in question. This taxonomy is still universally accepted today.Examining famous cases like the
Central Park jogger and the Amanda Knox case as well as the scores of ordinary people convicted
based on their confessions who have been exonerated by Kassin's work with the Innocence Project
along with groundbreaking research into how age race and station play into false confessions
Duped shows why this stigma persists and how we can reform the criminal justice system to be
more just.
