What Makes Sex Offenders Confess? An Exploratory Study
Titel:
What Makes Sex Offenders Confess? An Exploratory Study
Auteur:
Faller, Kathleen Coulborn Birdsall, William Chalk Henry, James Vandervort, Frank Silverschanz, Peregrine
Verschenen in:
Journal of child sexual abuse
Paginering:
Jaargang 10 (2002) nr. 4 pagina's 31-49
Jaar:
2002-06-18
Inhoud:
This study examines correlates of offender confession in criminal sexual conduct cases involving children. The cases consist of all closed court files (N = 318), spanning the last 10 years from a single jurisdiction. This jurisdiction has a community-wide protocol for handling child sexual abuse cases, a high rate of charging (69%), a high rate of confession (64%), and high rates of pleas to sex crimes (77%). To determine what factors were associated with suspect confession before adjudication, we examined characteristics of the suspect, the child, the abuse, and the system using bi-variate and multi-variate analysis. The following four variables are associated with suspect confession: (1) having the state police conducting the law enforcement part of the investigation, (2) more serious abuse, (3) younger age of the suspect, and (4) having a court appointed (as opposed to a retained) attorney.