Know Happened Response To Two Peers
1. Brook
In the TED talk that I chose to watch, the speaker, Lindsay Malloy, was emphasizing the ongoing issue with teens confessing to crimes they did not commit (Malloy, 2018). She stays focused on this one particular case that involves the police interrogating a teen, while also trying to get him to think that they will help him if he will only confess to what they “know” happened. During the TED talk, Malloy goes on to give statistics on the amount of teen that has been wrongfully convicted because they confess to a crime they did not commit. She also goes on to say that many kids do not even ask to have a parent or lawyer in the room while the teen is being interrogated. She concludes her talk by saying that researchers need to do better and law enforcement needs to have training on how to talk to the youth.
What I found most interesting in the TED talk was that most teens do now know or understand their Miranda Rights, which is what makes people understand that they do not have to say anything without an attorney present. I also found it interesting that in the Brendan Dassey case, they convicted him without any type of hard physical evidence. I thought this was interesting because I did not think that a confession was enough to be able to convict one of a crime.
The type of information that Malloy used to back up her information was video clips of the Dassey interrogation and statistics of different teens throughout the years. Malloy also did her own research project to see how many of these teens would lie about rather or not they cheated.
One way that the reading and the TED talk relate to one another is because they both discuss the different lobes of the brain and how they can affect decision making (Malloy, 2019. OpenStax College, 2014). Both of these also relate to one another because they both talk about how teens are easily influenced and can be talked into things easier than those of a younger or older age.
Why teens confess to crimes they didn’t commit.
By: Lindsay Malloy
July 2018
This TED talk is about how teens are not mentally developed enough to be able to go under interrogation alone. Teens are way more likely to confess to crimes they didn’t commit due to the pressure of the interrogator. The interrogator will lie to these teens and either try to pressure them into confessing due to threats or try to act as if they are the teens friends and convince them to confess. This is too much pressure for a teen and has shown to cause them to lie to get the pressure off their back. Research has shown that in 25% of cases involving teens, DNA proof has been found the teen was not guilty when they confessed. This information only shows the cases with DNA involved and possibly could be a lot higher. Lindsay and her team did a very interesting study with students trying to see how likely they would confess to cheating even though they didn’t do anything wrong and see how often they asked for a parent. They found out that 59% of students confessed to cheating in this experiment when none of them had and only 4% asked for a parent. Lindsay goes on to talk about how crucial it is to have a parent around during times of interrogating because teens aren’t able to think towards the future like an adult and the adult can help assist with that. This is exactly what is said in the readings. Teens can not understand the consequences and are reckless. They just want relief here and now and this is what is happening to teens when they confess. I would love to talk to Lindsay more about this subject and see what her thoughts are as far if she thinks this is just in the legal system because teens often don’t understand it or if this is all parts of a teens life. I would assume with her cheating study she would tell me all parts of life. I would like to know if we could inform teens about subjects like this in school, if they would be able to handle the situation better in the heat of the moment.