Summary
"We conducted a systematic review of the published and unpublished literatures on the interview and interrogation of suspects. Our focus was to examine the impact of accusatorial versus information-gathering approaches on the elicitation of confessions. Two meta-analytic reviews were conducted: one that focused on observational and quasi-experimental field studies of actual suspects in which ground truth (i.e., veracity of the confession statement) was unknown, and another that assessed experimental, laboratory-based studies in which ground truth was known. ... Results revealed that while both information-gathering and accusatory methods were similarly associated with the production of confessions in field studies, experimental data indicated that the information-gathering method increased the likelihood of true confessions, while reducing the likelihood of false confessions. Given the small number of independent samples, the current findings are considered preliminary, yet suggestive of the benefits of information-gathering methods in the interrogative context."--Page 8.