False confessions: The relative importance of psychological, criminological and substance abuse variables

Abstract

The aim of the study was to investigate the relative importance of psychological, criminological, and substance abuse variables in differentiating between alleged false confessors and other prison inmates. The participants were 509 inmates newly admitted to all Icelandic prisons over a four-year period. Sixty-two (12%) of the inmates claimed to have made a false confession to the police sometime in the past. A discriminant function analysis was used to identify the variables that best discriminated between the alleged false confessors and the other prison inmates. Out of 17 psychological variables and 16 criminological and substance abuse variables, two variables (number of previous imprisonments and the score on the Gough Socialisation Scale) correctly classified 93% of the non-false confessors and 32.3% of the alleged false confessors, with a total classification rate of 82.7%. The findings suggest that among Icelandic prison inmates, antisocial personality characteristics and the extent and severity of criminal behaviour, as judged by number of previous imprisonments, are the best predictors of offenders claiming to have made a false confession to the police. The implication is that among some prison inmates, making a false confession is a part of their criminal life style.