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FALSE CONFESSIONS/ PEDOPHILIA Your continued donations keep Wikipedia running! False confessionFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia(Redirected from False confession (legal)) Jump to: navigation, search
A false confession is where a suspect in a crime admits their guilt to the crime, even though they are not responsible for the crime. False confessions can be induced through coercion or by the mental incompetency of the accused. Even though false confessions might appear to be an exceptional and unlikely event, they occur on a regular basis in case law and it is one of the reasons why jurisprudence has established a series of rules to reject confessions likely to be false. These are called the "confession rules". Interrogation techniques such as the Reid technique try to suggest to the suspect that he will experience a feeling of moral appeasement if he chooses to confess. Material rewards, like coffee, the cessation of the interrogation and a warm bed are also used to the same effect. In Canada at least, courts of law have also recognized as valid, confessions made, even though the interrogators lied by suggesting they had substantial evidence against a given suspect when in fact they didn't. (See R. C. Oickle, 2000 CSC 38[1]) It is then understandable that the high pressure generated may push innocent individuals to produce a confession. People who are easily coerced score high on the Gudjonsson suggestibility scale. Sometimes sacrificial false confessions may be used to divert attention from the actual person who committed the crime, a parent might confess to save their child from jail. People may also confess to a crime, or plead guilty to a crime they did not commit, as a form of plea bargaining to avoid a harsher sentence.
// if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } // [edit]Coercive false confessions[edit]Central Park joggerIn the Central Park jogger case, on April 19, 1989, five teens aged from 14 to 16 were arrested and each confessed on videotape to the crime of attacking and raping a jogger and implicated each other. They later repudiated these confessions and maintained their innocence. The five were: Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana and Kharey Wise. In 1989, the police were aware that an unidentified sixth person had left semen on the victim's body. In 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted murderer and rapist, admitted that he was responsible for the rape and attack of the jogger. The DNA obtained from the crime scene matched Reyes. New York state justice Charles J. Tejada vacated the convictions of five defendants on December 19, 2002. Yusef Salaam served six and a half years in prison. [edit]Pizza Hut murderIn 1988 Nancy DePriest was raped and murdered at the Pizza Hut she worked at in Austin, Texas. A coworker, Chris Ochoa, pled guilty to the murder. His friend, Richard Danziger, was convicted of the rape. Ochoa confessed to the murder and implicated his friend, Danziger, in the rape. It was later discovered that the confession was coerced and the guilty party was arrested. The forensic evidence that linked Danziger to the crime scene was a single pubic hair found in the restaurant that was consistent with his type of pubic hair. There was semen evidence collected, but DNA analysis was not performed. Both men received life sentences. Years later Achim Marino wrote letters while in prison claiming he was the murderer. The DNA was finally tested and matched Marino. Chris Ochoa and Richard Danziger were exonerated and released from prison in 2001 after 12 years of incarceration. [edit]Corethian BellCook County, Illinois prosecutors were required to videotape murder confessions, but not interrogations, starting in August of 1999. Corethian Bell who is slightly retarded, said he confessed to the murder of his mother, Netta Bell, because police hit him so hard he was knocked off his chair and because he grew tired and hopeless after being in police custody for more than 50 hours. He said he thought that if he confessed, the interrogations would stop, then he could explain himself to a judge and be set free. With a confession on tape, he was then prosecuted and sent to jail. When the DNA at the crime scene was tested it matched a man already in prison for a crime similar to Netta Bell's murder. [edit]Simon MarshallSimon Marshall, was a Canadian rape suspect, he was imprisoned for 5 years before genetic evidence found him innocent. Mental retardation was a factor in his confession. This case lead to the creation of the Marshall Commission. [edit]Voluntary false confessions[edit]Laverne PavlinacLaverne Pavlinac confessed that she and her boyfriend murdered a man in Oregon in 1990. They were convicted, then released five years later when Keith Hunter Jesperson confessed to a series of murders. She had become obsessed with details of the crime. [edit]Others
Taping interrogations and confessionsMost jurisdictions do not require a confession to be videotaped, and fewer require the taping of interrogations. [edit]Innocence ProjectThe Innocence Project works to release prisoners falsely accused by reexamining evidence with newer techniques, not available at the time of the original conviction. [edit]See also
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PedophiliaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view.Please improve the article or discuss the issue on the talk page.
Pedophilia or paedophilia (see spelling differences) is the paraphilia of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to prepubescent or peripubescent children. Persons with this attraction are called pedophiles. In contrast to the generally accepted medical definition, the term pedophile is also sometimes used to denote significantly older adults who are sexually attracted to adolescents below the local age of consent[1], as well as those who have sexually abused a child.
// if (window.showTocToggle) { var tocShowText = "show"; var tocHideText = "hide"; showTocToggle(); } // [edit]DefinitionsThe word comes from the Greek paidophilia (παιδοφιλια)—pais (παις, "child") and philia (φιλια, "love, friendship"). Paidophilia was coined by Greek poets as a substitute for "paiderastia" (pederasty).[2] The term paedophilia erotica was coined in 1886 by the Vienna psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing in his writing Psychopathia Sexualis.[3] He gave the following characteristics:
Strictly speaking, this definition would include many adolescents and prepubescents, for whom such an interest might be normal; thus, some experts add the criterion that the interest be toward children at least five years younger than the subject. However, according to some experts, a diagnosis of pedophilia can also be appropriate for a post-pubescent adolescent.[4] See entry for sexologist Dr. John Money. Krafft-Ebing also authored a three-fold model of child molesters, these three types being
Individually referring to v. Krafft-Ebing's three types as
this three-type model as well as the fundamental mental and behavioural differences of the three types were empirically evidenced, among others, by Kinsey; Howells 1981[5]; Abel, Mittleman & Becker 1985[6]; Knight et al. 1985[7]; Brongersma 1990[8]; McConaghy 1993[9]; Ward et al. 1995[10]; Hoffmann 1996[11]; Seikowski 1999[12]. Use of the term pedophile to describe all child sexual offenders is seen as problematic by some people[13][14][15], especially when viewed from a medical standpoint, as the majority of sex crimes against children are perpetrated by situational offenders rather than people sexually preferring prepubertal children.[16][17][18] Nevertheless, some researchers, such as Howard E. Barbaree [19], have endorsed the use of actions as a sole criterion for the diagnosis of pedophilia as a means of taxonomic simplification, rebuking the American Psychiatric Association's standards as "unsatisfactory". Some individuals[20][21], such as Dr. Fred S. Berlin[22][23], assert sexual attraction to children to be a sexual orientation in itself. Berlins asserts, "I think it can be both a disorder and an orientation."[24] Dan Markussen, spokesman for Danish Pedophile Association, argues that "sexual orientation is defined as a lifelong attraction, which pedophilia obviously is."[24] [edit]DiagnosisThe International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (F65.4) defines pedophilia as "a sexual preference for children, boys or girls or both, usually of prepubertal or early pubertal age." [25] The APA's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th edition, Text Revision gives the following as its "Diagnostic criteria for 302.2 Pedophilia"[26] :
The actual boundaries between childhood and adolescence may vary in individual cases and are difficult to define in rigid terms of age. The World Health Organization, for instance, defines adolescence as the period of life between 10 and 19 years of age[27], though it is most often defined as the period of life between the ages of 13 and 18. The APA diagnostic criteria do not require actual sexual activity with a child. The diagnosis can therefore be made based on the presence of fantasies or sexual urges alone, provided the subject meets the remaining criteria. [edit]Extent of occurrenceThe extent to which pedophilia occurs is not known with any certainty. Some studies have concluded that at least a quarter of all adult men may have some feelings of sexual arousal in connection with children.[28] Freund et al. (1972) remarked that "with males who have no deviant object preferences, clearly positive sexual reactions occur to [nude] 6- to 8-year old female children."[29] In 1989 Briere and Runtz conducted a study on 193 male undergraduate students concerning pedophilia. Of the sample, 21% acknowledged sexual attraction to some small children; 9% reported sexual fantasies involving children; 5% admitted masturbating to these fantasies; and 7% conceded some probability of actually having sex with a child if they could avoid detection and punishment. These sexual interests were associated with negative early sexual experiences, masturbation to pornography, self-reported likelihood of raping a woman, frequent sex partners, and attitudes supportive of sexual dominance over women. The authors also noted that "given the probable social undesirability of such admissions, [one could] hypothesize that the actual rates ... were even higher."[30] A study by Hall et al. of Kent State University found that 32.5% of their sample — 80 adult male volunteers, 20% of whom reported some attraction to prepubescent girls — exhibited sexual arousal to heterosexual pedophilic stimuli that equaled or exceeded their arousal to the adult stimuli.[31] [edit]Occurrence in child sex offendersA perpetrator of child sexual abuse is, despite all medical definitions, commonly assumed to be a pedophile, and referred to as such; however, there may be other motivations for the crime[19] (such as stress, marital problems, or the unavailability of an adult partner[32]), much as adult rape can have non-sexual reasons. Thus, child sexual abuse alone may or may not be an indicator that its perpetrator is a pedophile; most perpetrators of it are in fact not primarily interested in children.[33] Those who have committed sexual crimes against children, but do not meet the normal diagnosis criteria for pedophilia, are referred to as situational, opportunistic, or regressed offenders, whereas offenders primarily attracted toward children are called structured, preferential, or fixated pedophiles, as their orientation is fixed by the structure of their personality. It is estimated that only 2 to 10 percent of child sexual abuse perpetrators meet the regular criteria for pedophilia. (Kinsey-Report, Lautmann, Brongersma, Groth). As noted by Abel, Mittleman, and Becker[34] (1985) and Ward et al. (1995), there are generally large characteristical distinctions between the two types of offenders. Situational offenders tend to offend at times of stress; have a later onset of offending; have fewer, often familial victims; and have a general preference for adult partners. Pedophilic offenders, however, often start offending at an early age; often have a large number of victims who are frequently extrafamilial; are more appetitively driven to offend; and have values or beliefs that strongly support an offense lifestyle. Most cases of father-daughter incest are believed to involve fathers who are situational offenders, rather than pedophiles. [35] [edit]TreatmentA number of proposed treatment techniques for pedophilia have been developed. Many regard pedophilia as highly resistant to psychological interference and have dismissed as ineffective most "reparative strategies."[36] Others, such as Dr. Fred Berlin, believe pedophilia can "indeed be successfully treated," if only the medical community would give it more attention.[22] The reported success rate of modern "reparative" treatment on pedophiles is very low.[36] A study by the Council on Scientific Affairs found that the success rate of aversion therapy was parallel to that of homosexual reparative therapy.[37] [edit]Medications and treatments similar to addiction therapyTreatment strategies for pedophilia include a "12 step support system", parallel to addiction therapy, though such a system is generally regarded as the least efficacious method of treatment. Anti-androgenic medications such as Depo Provera may be used to lower testosterone levels, and are often used in conjunction with other approaches. [edit]Cognitive-behavioral therapyMore favoured is cognitive-behavioral therapy, in which the subject is taught to associate "pedophilic behavior" with various unpleasantries. Usually, this is done by telling the pedophile to fantasize of "deviant sexual activity", and then, once aroused, they are given instructions to imagine the assumed legal and social consequences of such an action. [edit]Physical therapies: Aversion therapy and brain surgeryOther programs induce an association of illegal behavior with pain by means of more controversial aversion therapy, in which the pedophile is sent an electric shock while fantasizing. [38] Increasingly since the 1950s sex offenders, especially homosexuals and pedophiles were treated by brain surgery. At the beginning these operations were called lobotomy, however due to public protests against this strategy during the 1970s they were renamed to thalamotomy (when there were doctors who had each made thousands of these operations already) which is increasingly advertized as an "effective therapy" for sex offenders (as well as for children suffering of assumed symptomes of sexual abuse, such as ADD) since the 1980s (see for instance Andy 1970; Bradford 1988a; Wyre & Swift 1991; Abel et al. 1992, Bridges et al. 1994; Cummings et al. 1995). Sigusch 2001 and others critizize the moral pressure put upon offenders by offering them amnesty in return for such non-standardized brain surgery where the surgeon is free to remove as much of the offender's cerebrum as he pleases, a therapy which according to Sigusch consecutively leads to complete physical destruction of the individual organism (or increasing exhibition of violent behaviour even if there was none before) since no successes are observed after each single surgery and surgeons generally regard that the therapy will be more successful the more brain mass will be removed (see also Andy 1970). Balasubramaniam et al. 1969 speak of this neurosurgery used on sex offenders as a "sedative" strategy "where a patient is made quiet and manageable by an operation". These methods are rarely used on pedophiles who have not offended. [edit]Problems of treatment strategiesCritizisms of therapies for pedophiles as well as theoretical models of no potential for their therapy mostly stem from the fact that pedophiles (other than situational offenders) usually exhibit no clinically pathological traits other than the direction of their sexual preference, a fact that is very rare among all other classified paraphilias and mental illnesses[39] where the pathological aetiological characteristics causing deviant behaviour are commonly therapied. As these pathological aetiological characteristics cannot be evidenced in pedophiles, common therapy models fail on them. Vogt 2006[39] states that even on an international scale only 2 scientific studies have ever been made on distinctly pathological mental characteristics of pedophiles before 2006 that were methodologically correct, naming these as Bernard 1982[40]; Wilson & Cox 1983[41]. Vogt 2006 re-confirmed identical results as Bernard 1982; Wilson & Cox 1983. No pathological characteristics could be found for pedophiles other than the direction of their sexual preference which all three studies explicitly suggest to be up for debate as not pathological especially in light of their findings. The only significant deviance from the norm other than sexual preference that could be found by all three studies was higher mean level of education of pedophiles compared to the average population, while all three studies also opt strongly for distinguishing between clinical and prison studies made of individuals mostly stigmatized, often traumatized by their current surroundings, and non-clinical, non-prison studies. Scientists supporting the declassification of pedophilia as paraphilia and mental illness due to the findings of the first two studies include Howitt 1998a[42]; Green 2002[43]; Ng 2002[44]; Fiedler 2004[45]. Also Langevin 1983[46] and Okami & Goldberg 1992[47] ("consistent" findings with Langevin 1983) found no pathological characteristics in pedophiles other than their sexual preference and that "None of the commonly held hypotheses were supported." [edit]Related terms
Pedophile activismMain article: Pedophile activismThe pedophile activism movement, referred to by some supporters as the childlove movement, is a social movement that encompasses a wide variety of views, but generally advocates one or more of the following: social acceptance of adults' romantic or sexual attraction to children; social acceptance of adults' sexual activity with children; and changes in institutions of concern to pedophiles, such as changing age-of-consent laws and mental illness classifications. The movement is extremely controversial and has made little progress toward these goals. The most high profile pedophile activism group is NAMBLA. NAMBLA advocates the legalization of sexual relationships between older men and young boys. [edit]See also
Notes and references
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