This won’t eliminate false confessions completely, but it could reduce them. But this won’t reduce voluntary false confessions. Those who when a murder is publicised make contact with the police and confess. All this takes up badly needed police resources as they have to eliminate them /finito

In fact when suspects are treated with respect they are actually more likely to make true confessions. And juries need expert witness testimony from forensic psychologists to help them in how to make decisions about confession testimony

A better way, and this does happen, is for police to use the evidence as data to test hypotheses to determine the truth as they act in an ethical way

And if a person has internalised the false narrative - it could take years before the person realises they’ve made a false confession. And this delay can undermine their credibility - why did they wait so long? It’s a tactic

If the person withdraws the confession after, that could be a good sign. Except the usual response is, that’s what a criminal would do anyway. And it can take years of appeals to rectify the wrong.

The Reid Technique aims to extract a confession. The logic seems to be criminals are hardened individuals, so approaches need to match this. Fair enough, you’d say. But if it’s a false confession - how can you know?

I taught the psychology of confessions over a number of years. Your description really brings theory to life. Confessions are powerful evidence of guilt, and because beyond a reasonable doubt is a high bar they are often required to achieve convictions when other evidence is insufficient

Very well written and very well put. The contrasts in your life circumstances highlights a universal lesson - no matter where we are in our lives, doing that one thing a day that makes us proud is a great philosophy for living life worth living.