THE CRIMINAL HISTORY OF FALSE CONFESSORS AND OTHER PRISON-INMATES

In this study 56 Icelandic prison inmates who claimed to have made a f alse confession to the police sometime in their lives were compared on various criminological variables with 423 other prison inmates. The ' false confessors' were found to have a significantly more active crimi nal life-style than the other inmates, including having obtained a cri minal conviction younger and having spent more time in prison. They ha d also had significantly more experience of police interrogations than the other inmates. The authors conclude that among this sample false confession was very much a part of their criminal lifestyle. The 'fals e confessors' in the present study appear to be quite different from t hose suspects who confess falsely due to unfamiliarity and inexperienc e with police interrogations and procedures.