Why Teens Confess to Crime they did not Commit

Notably, as an established intellectual in the field of forensic developmental psychology, studies revolve around criminal investigations and law while focusing on reformulating psychological findings into legal language or a courtroom in comprehensible manner. In the same fashion, the developmental psychology aspect of her studies helps illuminate critical inputs of growth and development through an individual’s lifespan necessary within the legal practice. In context, her career delves on children’s actions and reactions within a forensic environment by analysing various prisms of growth and development such as autobiographical memory, eyewitness identification, personality, social and emotional attachments, memory distortion, narrative construction, just to mention a few. In the talk, Lindsay sought to investigate the circumstances under which juveniles and teens “tend” or prefer to falsely confess into crime they did not commit.

In the exposition, she seeks to exude and explain the context of complexities that make the teen vulnerable in a forensic investigation compared to adults. In other words, she argues that depending with the situation a teen or their family lives in, they are susceptible to waiving Miranda Rights without their knowledge and consent. In one of the analysed cases, the Central Park Five, where five teenagers confessed of gang rape in 1989, she argues that the case took the teenagers a decade to clear their names of false confessions. Despite the presence of the parents of the accused, the talk notes that they, the parents, lacked general and critical knowledge of legal sophistications and lacked ample time to help them and their sons to reflect on the offers before taking plea (ted.

com/talk/Lindsay, 2016). Reaction The talk’s focus on the desire to focus on the scientific aspects of false confessions provides a platform of relooking into the judicial and legal process involving teens. The appreciation by the police officers and relevant authority of the need for specialized training to deal with youth not only solidifies the talk’s thesis statement, but also goes on to illustrate a conscious or indeliberate breakdown in the practices within the legal process that calls of overhaul. For instance, in the Brendan’s case that involved public outcry, a majority feel that the police and investigating agencies were under immerse pressure, and that the manner in which the agencies conducted investigation was wanting. In addition, the data from the United States court proceedings indicating 25% of all wrongful convictions ended with exoneration from DNA evidence ferments the paramountcy of understanding autobiographical memory in the interrogation process.

For instance, Neal (2018) observes that to capture the aspects of accuracy and credibility in ascertaining child’s innocence or lack of it requires evaluation of their personalities in conjunction with their immediate physical and emotional attachments. In context, they argue that child’s ability to accurately perceive and memorize occurrence of an event stems from individual’s cognitive abilities to recollect and collate the occurrence of events. , & Thomson, L. Teaching Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology in Europe. In Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology in Europe (pp. Springer, Cham. Kassin, S.  American Psychologist. Perlin, M. L. " Your Old Road Is/Rapidly Agin'": International Human Rights Standards and Their Impact on Forensic Psychologists, the Practice of Forensic Psychology, and the Conditions of Institutionalization of Persons with Mental Disabilities.