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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

An Experimental Analysis of Children's Ability to Provide a False Report about a Crime
Published on: May 3, 2016
What makes sex offenders confess? An exploratory study
K C Faller1, W C Birdsall, J Henry
1University of Michigan School of social Work, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106, USA. kcfaller@umich.edu
Abstract:
This study examines correlates of offender confession in criminal sexual conduct cases involving children. The cases consist of all closed court files (N=318), spanning the last 10 years from a single jurisdiction. This jurisdiction has a community-wide protocol for handling child sexual abuse cases, a high rate of charging (69%), a high rate of confession (64%), and high rates of pleas to sex crimes (77%). To determine what factors were associated with suspect confession before adjudication, we examined characteristics of the suspect, the child, the abuse, and the system using bi-variate and multi-variate analysis. The following four variables are associated with suspect confession: (1) having the state police conducting the law enforcement part of the investigation, (2) more serious abuse, (3) younger age of the suspect, and (4) having a court appointed (as opposed to a retained) attorney.
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