The Confession Nobody Understands: Why Innocent People Say They Did It

Most of us believe we would never confess to something we did not do. That confidence feels obvious, even moral. But research on interrogation pressure suggests the mind behaves differently in custody than it does from the safety of a couch. This episode explores false confessions through the 2024 Campbell systematic review and Kassin and colleagues' 2025 update on police-induced confessions. We look at accusatorial interrogation, information-gathering interviews, false evidence, minimization, fatigue, isolation, and the short-term need to escape an unbearable room. This episode was generated with AI assistance.