Confessions are some of the strongest forms of evidence that one can bring to a court of law as they possess compelling weight. Therefore, one is likely to make a conviction based on the confessions. Eliciting a confession for presentation in a court of law is indeed one of the primary goals of the justice systems. As a result controversies have arisen concerning the use of deception to elicit confessions from suspects. Indeed, police do use trickery and deception to make criminals confess (Leo, 2008). However, use of such techniques during interrogation is likely to bring forth false confessions.

In many occasions, confessions may be the only way to convict guilty suspects. However, without their voluntary confession, they would not be convicted. As such, interrogators have no choice but to use deception to elicit a confession. An example is the use of a false claim that a suspect’s accomplice has confessed while, in fact, they have not. An interrogator can claim falsely about having physical evidence or an eye witness.

In other cases, the investigator may not know if a suspect is guilty, but he or she can use deception as a tactic to cause and emotional reaction (Skerker, 2010). However, one ought to note that the use of deception may reduce the likelihood of a confession if the suspect knows that he or she is making a false confession. It is also necessary to understand that the use of deception may lead to false confessions and consequently the conviction of innocent people. Deceptive Interrogation should, therefore, have its limits.

Interrogation of suspects and getting real confessions is one of the toughest tasks during a police investigation. Suspects will resist all efforts to make confessions since they understand that lack of evidence would help them to be free at last. Moreover, defendants know that the only way the judge can convict is through confessions. In addition, some suspects may falsely confess to crimes they did not commit. Such may be due to personal reasons like fear or the need to protect the actual perpetrator of a given crime (Turvey & Cooley, 2014).

It therefore becomes necessary to not only motivate, but to drive suspects in the correct way, and as a result allow the justice system to convict the actually guilty suspects. Despite it being a huge task to get a true confession, a judge can accurately detect deception during confession. In fact, detecting deception would be helpful in avoiding the conviction of innocent suspects. A judge can detect deceit by relying on the content the suspect provides to determine if there are any contradictions by the suspect.