Confessions

“Why Do Innocent People Confess?”  This article was posted in The New York Times on Sunday February 26.  It makes you really have to ask yourself “why do people say they did something they didn’t do?”  According to this article by David K. Shipler, “I Confess!” Why Do People Admit to Things They Haven’t Done?  These sort of confessions happen very offend.  The writer of this article brings light to a very common issue that happens more than we think.  It’s scary to know that some officers may use an approach to get you to confess to something you may not even have knowledge of or anything about.  After being interrogated for hours and hours at a time will have a person worn out and wanting to confess to whatever just to go home so they think.  Some of the officers will feed you information and play mind games to get you to confess and giving up you life and you not even realize what you are doing.  I feel that the author intended audience is for everyone.  This is an article that I feel everyone should be aware of because you never know it could happen to you.  The cases of false confessions are in the news and on TV all the time so we know this is something that happens all the time.  I give the author his credibility in that sense but, I’m not to sure about how the author informs the audience of the tricks officers use to get there information from suspects.  He spoke of how the officers would use a fingerprint card with their fingerprints and tell the suspect that it’s his/her fingerprints that was taken from the car that they stole.  The suspect has no clue of what to think or believe.  The evidence and claims of these sort of things happening where brought up by the author in cases where DNA evidence was used.  According to the Innocence Project false confessions have been about 24% in about 289 convictions reversed using DNA.  We hear a lot in the media how people have sat in prison for years for convictions and crimes they didn’t commit.  I agree with the author that there are many innocent people sitting behind bars because of the way some law enforcement officers get there information or do their interrogations.  There has to be a better way!