Blame attribution regarding index offence on admission to secure hospital services

Abstract

Assessment by psychologists is part of the routine multi-disciplinary admission process to secure facilities for those with a diagnosis of severe mental illness and an offending history. Non-engagement with the assessment process is a common clinical phenomenon. Using a survey design, we report on the administration of the Gudjonsson Blame Attribution Inventory, (a questionnaire which elicits causal attributions about offending), where possible, to a cohort of consecutive admissions to a medium secure unit, and a maximum security hospital. Reasons for non-compliance with the assessment process are examined. The responses of those who completed a series of questionnaires are compared using unit, sex, ethnicity, diagnosis and index offence as group variables. With regard to attribution of blame for index offence, contrary to prediction, those with a history of psychosis, rather than personality disorder, obtained higher external attribution scores. The implications of these findings for the assessment of blame and guilt feelings during the early stages of admission to a secure mental health service, and possible treatment implications, are considered.     

THE RELATIONSHIP OF ALCOHOL WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS TO SUGGESTIBILITY AND COMPLIANCE

People who are experiencing alcohol withdrawal are disadvantaged in terms of their ability to cope with leading questions and interrogative pressure (i.e. interrogative suggestibility). What had not been studied previously was the relationship of the severity of alcohol withdrawal symptoms with suggestibility and compliance. Suggestibility and compliance scores, obtained during the first week of hospital admission, were correlated with the severity of alcohol symptoms measured on a daily basis over a 7‐day period in a group of 393 patients attending treatment for alcohol abuse problems. Separate analyses were performed for the male and female patients. Significant gender differences emerged. Among males, alcohol withdrawal symptoms correlated positively with suggestibility and compliance across days. In contrast, among the females alcohol withdrawal symptoms were not significantly correlated with suggestibility and compliance, but were related to confabulations in memory recall. The findings suggest that in relation to psychological vulnerabilities during questioning, alcohol withdrawal symptoms are associated with different psychological factors in males and females. The findings have implications for the potential unreliability of information obtained from people interviewed during alcohol withdrawal.     

A field evaluation of the VIPER system: a new technique for eliciting eyewitness identification evidence

Abstract

The main aim of the study was to investigate the rate of claimed false confession during police questioning and identify variables that best discriminate between false confessors and non-false confessors. The participants were 24 627 high school students in seven countries in Europe. Out of 2726 who had been interrogated by the police as a suspect, 375 (13.8%) claimed to have made false confessions to the police. Logistic regression analyses showed that for both boys and girls, having attended substance abuse therapy, been attacked and bullied, and having committed a burglary, significantly discriminated between the false confessor and non-false confessor. In addition for boys, having been sexually abused by an adult outside the family was the single best predictor. The study shows the importance of history of victimization and substance misuse among adolescents in relation to giving a false confession to police during interrogation.     

Psychological and psychiatric aspects of a coerced-internalized false confession

This paper provides an insight into the mechanism of a coerced-internalized type of false confession. The case involved an American airman who confessed to the murder of a close friend after "failing" four polygraph tests. Psychological and psychiatric reports were prepared at the request of the defence and the findings were presented at a military hearing. The airman's confession was ruled involuntary, leading to a dismissal of the charges. The authors discuss the case with reference to the relevant literature on false confession and pseudomemories.     

The relationship of suggestibility and compliance with self-deception and other-deception

The aim of the study was to assess the relationship of interrogative suggestibility and compliance with other-deception and self-deception. The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS 1), the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale (GCS), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), and the Other and Self-Deception questionnaires (ODQ and SDQ) were administered to 237 Icelandic prison inmates. Other and Self-Deception scores did not correlate significantly with suggestibility and compliance, whereas significant correlations were found between the deception scores and EPQ Psychoticism, Neuroticism and Lie scores. The EPQ Lie score explained about one-third of the variance in the ODQ score, suggesting a considerable overlap between the two impression management measures. The most important practical implication of the findings is that self-favouring bias does not appear to significantly influence suggestibility and compliance scores.     

Effect of photoarray exposure duration on eyewitness identification accuracy and processing strategy

In this study all offenders admitted to Icelandic prisons over a one year period were approached and 229 (95%) agreed to co-operate with the study. Twenty-seven (12%) of the 229 subjects claimed to have in the past made a false confession during police interviewing. Women prisoners more commonly claimed to have made a false confession than males. The main motives given for having made the false confession were to protect somebody else (48%) and police pressure or escape from custody (52%). The great majority (78%) of the subjects had never retracted the confession, claiming that they had perceived no point in dong so. Twenty-one (78%) of the subjects were convicted of the offenses to which they had, allegedly, made a false confession. The findings in the present study raise the possibility that within an inquisitorial system false confessions may go relatively undetected by the judiciary and be rarely retracted or disputed.     

Personality predictors of self-reported offending in Icelandic students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between self-reported offending and personality. A total of 1603 students in further education in Iceland completed the Mak Self-Reported Delinquency Scale as well as a number of psychological tests, namely the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ and IVE), the Gough Socialisation Scale, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Gudjonsson Compliance Scale. Multiple regression analyses showed that five out of the 10 individual personality scales contributed 27 and 30 per cent to self-reported offending for males and females, respectively. Overall, the Gough Socialisation Scale and EPQ psychoticism contributed most to the variance in self-reported offending, but impulsivity, extraversion and a low lie score also added significantly to the variance after interactions among the personality measures had been taken into account. Some gender differences emerged with impulsivity being a better predictor of offending among the males than females. Overall, the findings give strong support for the hypothesis that personality, particularly those relating to antisocial personality traits, is significantly related to self-reported offending in both males and females.     

The nature of shoplifting in Iceland

This paper investigates the nature of shoplifting in Iceland for the period 1977–1980. Data was collected from police reports. There were a total of 103 incidents reported to the police in the greater Reykjavik area for the four-year period studied. Most incidents were reported on Fridays and Wednesdays, and in December. Fifty-nine per cent of the subjects were between the ages of 11 to 14 years and only 6.9 per cent were above the age of 50 years. Young females tended to shoplift more frequently than males whilst in the company of their contemporaries. Females commonly stole clothes intended for personal use, wheras males most frequently stole books which they intended to sell for cash. Shoplifting represents a very small proportion (about 1.3%) of all theft offences reported to the police in Iceland. Cases were invariably dealt with out of court and although a large proportion of suspects admitted to previous shoplifting it was very rare that people were re-apprehended.     

Eyewitness Memory,Suggestibility, and Repeated Recall Sessions in Children with Mild and Moderate Intellectual Disabilities

This study of eyewitness memory questioned children with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities (ID) about a live staged event 1 day later and, again, 2 weeks later. Children with mild ID performed as well as typically-developing children of the same age in response to free recall instructions, and they were just as able as same age peers to resist misleading questions. However, they performed more poorly on general questions, probing for further information after free recall. The children with mild ID also changed their responses to specific questions more often in the repeated interview. The group of children with moderate ID showed markedly lower performance than peers of the same age on nearly every type of eyewitness memory question. Comparisons of the children with ID to mental age-matched peers indicated that performance was similar, although children with ID gave more information in response to free recall instructions and changed their answers in the repeated interview more often. Standardized measures of verbal memory (TOMAL) and suggestibility (Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale) were modest to moderate predictors of eyewitness memory performance.     

Police-Induced Confessions: Risk Factors and Recommendations

Reviewing the literature on police-induced confessions, we identified suspect characteristics and interrogation tactics that influence confessions and their effects on juries. We concluded with a call for the mandatory electronic recording of interrogations and a consideration of other possible reforms. The preceding commentaries make important substantive points that can lead us forward—on the effects of videotaping of interrogations on case dispositions; on the study of non-custodial methods, such as the controversial Mr. Big technique; and on an analysis of why confessions, once withdrawn, elicit such intractable responses compared to statements given by child and adult victims. Toward these ends, we hope that this issue provides a platform for future research aimed at improving the diagnostic value of confession evidence.