False Confessions: How effective is torture?

False Confessions: How effective is torture?

Torture has been used for centuries as a means of coercing information from people. Even American detectives and investigators use certain interrogation tactics to make one uncomfortable enough to give up information. However, the information given may not be as accurate as it seems at first glance. The information retrieved from people during interrogations may be falsified due to the stress the person is put under.

Saul Kassin writes about the different kinds of falsified confessions. He writes that there are three main types: voluntary, compliant, and internalized (Kassin). Voluntary confessions are just that, those that are given freely by innocent people without prompting from authority figures. Compliant confessions are those given to remove oneself from an uncomfortable situation, or avoid some kind of punishment. Internalized false confessions, Kassin writes, are those given by highly vulnerable individuals under severe stress from interrogation techniques (Kassin). He also states that 20-25 percent of those exonerated from crimes actually confessed to committing the crime.

Investigations put so much faith into the information they gain from interrogations; however this information is in some cases far from the truth. The stress that one is put under during interrogations can cause them to make up stories or, as stated before, confess to crimes they did not commit. Interrogations can even to so far as to cause people to create false memories for the crimes in which they did not commit. Henkel and Coffman write that in experimental trials, confessions proved to be the greatest influence on conviction rates, and are more powerful than eyewitness testimonies and character witnesses (Henkel and Coffman).

Interrogation tactics and torture are clearly effective in putting the mind and the body into uncomfortable situations and gaining information. But the effectiveness of these techniques is completely put into question when the stress of the situation gives false information. False confessions leads to innocent people being punished or even executed for crimes they did not commit.

In the broader scheme of things, torture is an ineffective tactic on prisoners or war. Not only is the act of harming an individual to try and obtain information morally questionable, it lacks the support to prove it is a reliable source of information. They may gain information, but the information is likely to be inaccurate and even fabricated within the mind of the individual due to the stress they have been put through.

Coffman, Kimberly J., and Linda A. Henkel. "Memory Distortions in Coerced False Confessions: A Source Monitoring Framework Analysis." Applied Cognitive Psychology 18.5 (2004): pp.567-588.
Kassin, Saul M. "False Confessions: Causes, Consequences, and Implications for Reform." Current Directions in Psychological Science 17.4 (2008): 249-53.