John Jay College Of Criminal Justice | The City University of New York

   

Saul Kassin, Distinguished Professor of Psychology at John Jay College, was featured in a 60 Minutes segment titled “Chicago: The False Confession Capital.” Professor Kassin was interviewed about his groundbreaking research on false confessions. Defense attorneys call the city of Chicago the false confession capital of the United States because it has twice as many documented false confession cases as any city in the country. The Chicago Police Department is now the subject of a Justice Department investigation into its interrogation practices.

To view the 60 Minutes segment, click here.

Professor Kassin is interested in the identification and prevention of wrongful convictions. Several years ago, he pioneered the scientific study of police interviewing, interrogations, and confessions, and introduced a taxonomy to distinguish among types of false confessions. He has also studied the psychology of eyewitness testimony as well as the impact of these and other types of evidence on jury decision-making. He often works with the Innocence Project and is currently funded by the National Science Foundation.

He is Past President of the American Psychology-Law Society (APA Division 41). He is also a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science (APS), and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP). He has worked as an analyst for various news media and as a consultant and expert witness in federal, military, and state courts.

Professor Kassin is author of the textbook Social Psychology (8th edition), published by Cengage Learning. He has also authored an introductory psychology textbook and co-authored or edited a number of scholarly books, including: Confessions in the Courtroom, The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure, The American Jury on Trial: Psychological Perspectives, and Developmental Social Psychology. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut  and taught as a Professor of Psychology at Williams College. At various times, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Kansas; a U.S. Supreme Court Judicial Fellow, working at the Federal Judicial Center; and a postdoctoral fellow and visiting professor in the Psychology and Law Program at Stanford University.