A visitor to this site writes to ask: "How has it come to be in America
that forcing a confession is acceptable, especially knowing that in doing so the real culprit is left free to violate society
again?"
It's a very good point. When the authorities obtain a confession, they
usually shut down the investigation. When someone is wrongly convicted based on a false confession, the true perpetrator
remains at large.
Recent advances in fingerprint technology are, in the words of the
Associated Press, "one in a string of developments that gives modern forensics" an expanding ability to solve crimes. As
law enforcement improves its ability to gather physical evidence, it should be less reliant on confessions to solve crimes
and therefore slower to resort to the interrogation techniques known to produce false confessions.
