Professors at Iowa State University conducted a really interesting study about false confessions. They found in two separate experiments that people were willing to confess to things they didn't do in order to gain short term consequences (avoiding interrogation) rather than gain long term rewards (not getting charged with a crime you didn't commit). Below is a quote from one of the researchers:
"What we found is that our participants clearly made admission decisions on the basis of the proximal consequence," Madon [one of the researchers] said. "They would admit to having done some criminal or unethical behavior in order to avoid answering repetitive questions. And they did that even though they knew that it increased the likelihood that they would have to meet with the police officer in several weeks to discuss their answers in more detail."
Read more about the study here.
Jessie Miskelley's confession has been debated - and with new information coming out all the time about false confessions, it seems that any new court proceedings will contain a huge amount of false confession discussion.
Hopefully, I'll be able to get in contact with the researchers - I'll post more as soon as I learn anything good!
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