TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2002//
TI  - What makes sex offenders confess? An exploratory study
JO  - Journal of child sexual abuse
A1  - Faller, Kathleen Coulborn
A1  - Birdsall, W. C.
A1  - Henry, Judith
A1  - Vandervort, F.
A1  - Silverschanz, P.
SP  - 31
EP  - 49
VL  - 10
IS  - 4
N2  - 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.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 1053-8712
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/
ID  - ref1
ER  -