False confessions in Malta : a criminological study based on the perception of professionals working in the criminal justice field

Abstract

Confession is the most attracting way of solving crimes.? (Brandon and Davies, 1973) Although the perception of many is that cases of false confessions are very rare, there are many studies which show that in reality this is not true. There are three main types of false confessions, which are voluntary false confessions, coerced-compliant false confessions and coerced-internalized false confessions. A voluntary false confession occurs when a person goes freely to a police station and admits to having committed a crime when in reality this is not true. Coerced-compliant false confessions occur when an innocent suspect confesses to the crime s/he is being suspected of committing during or after a police interrogation due to the pressure police officers apply to him/her. The third type of false confession, coerced-internalized false confession, occurs when an innocent suspects actually starts believing that s/he has committed a crime which in reality hasn?t, after police officers apply external pressure on him/her during interrogation. (Gudjonsson, 1992; Kassin, 1997; Kassin and Wrightsman, 1985; Stephenson, 1992) This dissertation aims at studying the current and potential situation of cases of false confessions in Malta. To address this research aim a qualitative approach was taken where police inspectors and criminal lawyers were interviewed. The main research question was that to study the reasons behind false confessions; `Why do false confessions occur?` Apart from this other situations relating to the dissertation topic were studied, such as police interrogation conditions and procedures in Malta, the perception of Maltese police inspectors and criminal lawyers, the rights suspect have during a police interrogation and also prevention measures to prevent cases of false confessions. The results and findings obtained through this study were mainly related to the situation of false confessions in Malta vis-à-vis the methods of police interrogation being used. This study focused also on current and pro active measures taken into consideration by the Malta Police Force regarding false confessions and police interrogations. This proved to be very interesting and helped the author to conclude this dissertation by contributing a set of recommendations which hopefully will positively contribute to this area in the local field. This study is based on the perception of professionals working in the Criminal Justice Field in Malta.