Criminal justice researchers use statistical modeling to examine wrongful-conviction risk

A University of Mississippi study has shed new light on the potential for wrongful convictions stemming from police interrogation tactics. Professors Mary Catlin and Thomas Bryan Smith found that the likelihood of a false confession increases with the length of an interrogation. While most confessions are truthful, when they are false, the consequences can be devastating—lasting years in prison for the innocent person, while the guilty party remains free.

Recent research shows that wrongful convictions account for around 4% of all capital cases in the U.S., with false confessions responsible for about 13% of those. Police interrogation techniques are linked to false confessions in roughly 1% of cases. To better understand this issue, the researchers ran thousands of simulations to estimate the risk of false confession–wrongful conviction at various interrogation lengths.

They found that at typical interrogations of about 1.5 hours, the risk is around 1%. However, by extending the interrogation to 12 hours, the risk could rise to 25%, and by 34 hours, it might reach 50%. This indicates that prolonged interrogations significantly increase the likelihood of false confessions. The study's authors emphasize that these simulations are not definitive proof but rather estimates based on available data.

They caution against using such simulations to inform policy or courtroom decisions, instead advocating for evidence-based interrogation tactics that have been proven to reduce false confessions.