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Biomedical subjects

G H Gudjonsson

Publications and source records attributed to G H Gudjonsson.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

Differences and similarities between violent offenders and sex offenders.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate differences and similarities between violent offenders and two types of sex offenders, rapists and child molesters, in terms of their personality, the nature of the victim, the role of alcohol, and their confession to their crime. METHOD: Thirty-six adult sex offenders, 23 child molesters, and 32 violent offenders were compared on personality measures, their relationship with the victim, the presence of alcohol intoxication, their confession rate and retraction at trial, and the reasons they gave for having confessed to the police. RESULTS: Child molesters and adult sex offenders (rapists) were significantly more introverted than the violent offenders. The child molesters had higher social desirability scores than the other groups, they tended to assault relatives and friends, they were rarely intoxicated while committing the offense, and they had strong internal need to confess to the police. Rapists and violent offenders were more commonly intoxicated during the commission of the offense; the former tended to assault acquaintances, where violent offenders most commonly assaulted strangers. Exactly half of the rapists retracted their confession when the case went to trial; in contrast none of the other offenders retracted their confession. CONCLUSIONS: The results show that there are significant differences as well as similarities between the three groups of offenders, which have implications for assessment and treatment.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Assessing the capacity of people with intellectual disabilities to be witnesses in court.

BACKGROUND: People with intellectual disabilities who have been victims or other witnesses of crime have had limited access to the criminal justice system, often on the basis of assumptions about their incapacity to be interviewed by the police and to give evidence in court. The aim of this study was to assess their capacity to be witnesses in court. METHODS: Forty-nine men and women with intellectual disabilities, all of whom were potential witnesses of ill-treatment, were assessed in order to provide advice, initially to the police, about their capacity to be interviewed for judicial purposes. The assessments included evaluations of each person's intellectual ability, memory, acquiescence, suggestibility, and their ability to explain concepts relating to the oath. RESULTS: Only 37 (76%) were able to complete the assessments. Most of those with a Full Scale IQ score of > or = 60 had a basic understanding of the oath, compared with only a third of those with IQ scores between 50 and 59, and none of those with IQ scores < 50. Nevertheless, some of the people who were unable to demonstrate an understanding of the oath did understand the words 'truth' and 'lie', especially when asked about these concepts in relation to concrete examples. CONCLUSIONS: While intellectual ability appears to be the best overall predictor of the capacity of people with intellectual disabilities to act as witnesses, confining witnesses to those who could explain the meaning of the oath would mean that a number of persons who might be interviewed by the police and subsequently appear in court could be excluded from the judicial process.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Unreliable admissions to homicide. A case of misdiagnosis of amnesia and misuse of abreaction technique.

BACKGROUND: The past decade has witnessed a recognition that unsafe criminal convictions may be occasioned by unreliable confessions. AIMS: To present a case which illustrates the dangers of using abreaction interview techniques in a legal context and demonstrate the relevance of the memory distrust syndrome to an unsafe confession to murder. METHOD: We under took a detailed assessment of a person appealing against his original murder conviction, 'the appellant', and a careful scrutiny of all the relevant papers in the case. RESULTS: The appellant served 25 years in prison before his conviction was quashed as 'unsafe' on the basis of fresh psychological and psychiatric evidence. CONCLUSIONS: Amnesia for an offence had been misdiagnosed, and the use of repeated abreaction interviews had further confused both the appellant and the original court. At the Appeal Court, the advice was that the man had experienced a form of source amnesia which resulted in an unreliable confession.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Eyewitness memory and suggestibility in children with mental retardation.

We examined how well children with mental retardation were able to recall a live staged event one day later compared to CA- and MA-comparable peers. Children with mental retardation performed very well on many measures of eyewitness memory performance, reaching the level of the CA-comparable group for free recall, general questions, open-ended questions, and correctly leading questions. They were, however, more suggestible in response to closed misleading questions than were children in the CA-comparable group, although they were not more suggestible than those in the MA-comparable group. Some relationships were found between a standardized measure of suggestibility and performance on the eyewitness memory task, but most of these relationships were not the same within each of our study groups.

Attention↗
PubMed1995

The relationship between suggestibility and anxiety among suspects detained at police stations.

The present study investigated the relationship between anxiety, as measured by the State-Trait Inventory (Spielberger, 1983) and interrogative suggestibility, as measured by the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS 2, Gudjonsson, 1987). One hundred and sixty-one suspects detained at two English police stations for questioning were assessed prior to being interviewed by the police. Unexpectedly, trait anxiety correlated more consistently with suggestibility than did state anxiety. The correlations were consistently higher among the Caucasian than the Afro-Caribbean subjects and the Afro-Caribbean subjects were significantly more suggestible than the Caucasian subjects even after their GSS 2 memory and IQ scores had been controlled for. The main practical implications of the findings are that interrogative suggestibility cannot be easily evaluated from the person's self-reported anxiety and the situation in which people are assessed may influence the relationship between these psychological variables.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Alcohol and drug intoxication during police interrogation and the reasons why suspects confess to the police.

This study investigates the effects of alcohol, drug intoxication and withdrawal symptoms on the mental state of criminal suspects and the nature of their confession. A total of 359 sentenced prisoners were approached on admission and 96% agreed to participate in the study. They completed a specially designed Confession Questionnaire, which asked them questions about their reasons for confessing to the police, their attitude towards their confession, their mental state at the time of the confession and the extent to which they had been under the influence of alcohol and drug intoxication at the time of crime and police interview. The confession rate for the sample was very high (92%), with serious traffic violators having the highest confession rate (95%) and sex offenders the lowest (83%). The findings illustrate that the "perception of proof", "internal need to confess" and "external pressure" are the main reasons why suspects confess. However, subjects were identified who had experienced a typical "prisoner's dilemma" phenomenon during the police interview because of a co-defendant. Alcohol and drug intoxication was very commonly reported both at the time of the offence and the police interview, but these were related to the nature of their offence. Although intoxication and withdrawal symptoms did not appear to seriously impair their coping during the police interview it was consistently reported as having made them confused.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

The inter-rater reliability of the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (form 2).

The Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS) is widely used, particularly in the preparation of court reports, to derive information on the memory, suggestibility and confabulation of criminal suspects, victims and witnesses. The inter-rater reliability of all these measures was assessed by three raters, using the data of 101 subjects who were tested on the parallel form of the scale (GSS2). The intra-class correlation coefficients for all the memory and suggestibility measures were both very high (.951-.996) and highly significant (p < .001 for all measures), indicating a high level of inter-rater reliability. In contrast, whilst still highly significant (p < .001), the correlations for confabulation on immediate and delayed recall were much lower (.724 and .803, respectively). Guidelines are provided to refine the scoring of memory and suggestibility and to clarify the definition of confabulation.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Intelligence, previous convictions and interrogative suggestibility: a path analysis of alleged false-confession cases.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between interrogative suggestibility and previous convictions among 108 defendants in criminal trials, using a path analysis technique. It was hypothesized that previous convictions, which may provide defendants with interrogative experiences, would correlate negatively with 'shift' as measured by the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (Gudjonsson, 1984a), after intelligence and memory had been controlled for. The hypothesis was partially confirmed and the theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Interrogative suggestibility, confabulation, and acquiescence in people with mild learning disabilities (mental handicap): implications for reliability during police interrogations.

In order to assess a criminal suspect's ability to make a reliable statement, performance on three measures--interrogative suggestibility, confabulation and acquiescence--may be used. This paper presents preliminary data on these measures for people with mild learning disabilities (Full Scale IQ [FSIQ]: 57-75). It was found that they were more suggestible than their average ability counterparts (FSIQ: 83-111) because they were much more susceptible to 'leading questions'. They also confabulated more and were more acquiescent. Overall, the data emphasized their potential vulnerability to giving erroneous testimony during interrogations.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

Interrogative suggestibility among adolescent boys and its relationship with intelligence, memory, and cognitive set.

This study investigates some of the hypotheses generated by the Gudjonsson and Clark model of interrogative suggestibility. The subjects were 40 adolescent boys (11-16 years), who completed the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale and instruments measuring intellectual skills, memory, field-dependence, hostility, and attitudes towards persons in authority. Suggestibility correlated negatively with I.Q. and memory capacity, and positively with field-dependence.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

The reasons why suspects confess during custodial interrogation: data for Northern Ireland.

This study looks at the reasons offenders give for having confessed during police interrogation. A number of hypotheses were tested, following the work of Gudjonsson and Petursson (1991) on an Icelandic prison sample. The subjects were 80 offenders who were serving prison sentences in Northern Ireland for violence, sex or property offences. The subjects completed the Gudjonsson Confession Questionnaire. All of the hypotheses tested were supported, indicating that there are three primary factors associated with the reasons why criminals make confessions during interrogation. These factors are referred to as Internal Pressure, External Pressure and Proof. The factors were found to be associated with the type of offence committed and the attitude of the offender towards his confession.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Suggestibility and compliance among alleged false confessors and resisters in criminal trials.

This paper describes a study which compares the interrogative suggestibility and compliance scores of 20 alleged false confessors and 20 subjects who had persistently denied their involvement in the crime they were charged with in spite of forensic evidence against them (labelled 'resisters'). The two groups were 'matched' for age, sex, intelligence, memory recall capacity, and the seriousness of the offence. It was hypothesized that the resisters would score significantly lower on tests of suggestibility and compliance than the alleged false confessors. The findings were confirmed at a high level of significance. A separate analysis of 14 resisters and 72 alleged false confessors, where IQ and memory were used as covariates rather than 'matching' the two groups on the relevant variables, gave almost identical results. The clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Cooperative Behavior↗
PubMed1990

One hundred alleged false confession cases: some normative data.

This paper describes the psychological characteristics of individuals who retract self-incriminating admissions made during police interviewing. A group of 100 alleged false confessors was compared with 104 other forensic referrals on four psychological variables. The two groups differed significantly on tests of intelligence, suggestibility, compliance and acquiescence. Normative data are provided for clinicians to evaluate test scores when assessing the psychological characteristics of individuals who claim to have made false confessions.

Cooperative Behavior↗
PubMed1990

Psychological and psychiatric aspects of shoplifting.

This paper reviews the relevant psychological, criminological, and psychiatric literature on shoplifting, with particular emphasis on implications for clinical issues and involvement. The paper provides a conceptual framework for working with shoplifters and highlights the need for careful assessment before treatment is embarked upon. It is emphasized that shoplifting is not a unitary category either in terms of motives or clinical problems and no one model can adequately explain the phenomenon.

England↗
PubMed1990

A proven case of false confession: psychological aspects of the coerced-compliant type.

This paper describes the case of a 17-year-old youth who falsely confessed to two murders during police interrogation while not legally represented. He again confessed during a second interview in the presence of a duty solicitor, and later made further misleading admissions to prison staff and another inmate while at the beginning of his remand. The confession elicited by the police appeared very detailed and apparently convincing. The confession subsequently by chance proved to be false. It appears to have resulted from persistent pressure and psychological manipulation of a man who was at the time distressed and susceptible to interrogative pressure. Following the withdrawal of the charges by the prosecution and the conviction of somebody else for the offense, a detailed psychological assessment indicated a clear improvement in the man's ability to assert himself and to cope with interrogative pressure. The youth was of average intelligence, suffered from no mental illness and his personality was not obviously abnormal.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

The effects of suspiciousness and anger on suggestibility.

In this paper three criminal cases are presented where a suspicious 'cognitive set' or anger during experimental interrogation appeared to have a dramatic effect on their general tendency towards suggestibility. The subjects were used as their own control, as their susceptibility to suggestions had been tested objectively on two separate occasions; on one occasion they proved very resistant to suggestions, this being clearly associated with temporary suspiciousness or anger; on the other occasion, when no obvious suspiciousness or anger was evident, they proved highly suggestible. The theoretical and forensic implications of the findings are discussed.

Adolescent↗