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

The aim of the study was to investigate the relative importance of psycholo gical, criminological, and substance abuse variables in differentiating bet ween alleged false confessors and other prison inmates. The participants we re 509 inmates newly admitted to all Icelandic prisons over a four-year per iod. 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 u sed to identify the variables that best discriminated between the alleged f alse confessors and the other prison inmates. Out of 17 psychological varia bles and 16 criminological and substance abuse variables, two variables (nu mber of previous imprisonments and the score on the Gough Socialisation Sca le) correctly classified 93% of the non-false confessors and 32.3% of the a lleged false confessors, with a total classification rate of 82.7%. The fin dings suggest that among Icelandic prison inmates, antisocial personality c haracteristics 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 pan of their criminal life style.