The Reykjavik Confessions

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_7617/index.html

by marcopolis • 12 years ago

198 77 12 years ago

bbc.co.uk

stuart_v• 12 years ago

God, this makes me so sad. Being persuaded into admitting guilt to a crime that you have no idea about sounds bizaare but I am sure this case wasn't the last.

Sharlin3• 12 years ago

Well, probably not all that rare in the US, for example, due to the abuse of the plea bargain system.

tripzilch• 12 years ago

That's the weirdest thing about US police series.

When I was younger, I never really believed that sort of thing actually happens for real, just thought it was an over-used fictional "cleverness" trope. I mean it's so obvious this is going to lead to abuse and false confessions if actually used for real-life confessions, I figured it had to, because in a TV-series you can assume that the police are the smart/good guys so they could safely use this clever (if somewhat unfair) trick to get the (obvious) bad guys.

As I got older, and perhaps as the themes in TV series got a little more complex, I started wondering sometimes, how are these even the good guys? For all they know they are now convicting an innocent man or woman, by pressuring them into confessing to a crime with the only leverage being "an offer they can't refuse" (a much larger sentence).

arethuza2• 12 years ago

At roughly the same time in the UK there were the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven cases:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guildford_Four_and_Maguire_Seve...

chanks• 12 years ago

Frontline has an excellent episode on the Norfolk Four, a similar case that happened in Virginia: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-confessions/

sixQuarks• 12 years ago

I would love to have my favorite book, "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan recreated in this same web layout. In fact, why AREN'T online books like this?

PetitPrince• 12 years ago

There's "Snow Fall - The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek" by John Branch and published in the New York Times with a similar format: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2012/snow-fall/

mercer4• 12 years ago

I've hard this style referred to as 'Snow Fall Journalism', actually!

medell• 12 years ago

The Guardian did a good piece "NSA Files Decoded": http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/01/sno...

For more stories in this format: http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/taxonomy...

sakri• 12 years ago

While the story was interesting, I was also more interested in the layout. In the past there were a lot of "over the top" Flash "experience" sites, with the decline of Flash and skyrocket of "thumb up and down" mobile sites I feel there has also been a drop in experimental layouts and visuals. A lot of that stuff was crap, but it's great to be surprised every now and then. Thumbs up bbc!

mercer4• 12 years ago

I generally like the Snowfall-style articles, but for some reason this is the first time where I felt a (very vague) sense that the style was overshadowing the content a little. That said, I prefer a little more experimentation in this area over staying safe...

cycojesus• 12 years ago

Strangely I came to comment because I had the opposite reaction. I couldn't read the article because I find the presentation way too noisy (and in general can't stand vertical scrolling much.)

blueskin_• 12 years ago

I don't like the lack of information density.

NKCSS2• 12 years ago

Is this to showcase the article style? It reminds me of the snowy thing the New York Times did a few months ago, but with added parallax effects

bgarbiak• 12 years ago

This form of presentation (a specific layout for a single longform article) got really popular recently. That "snowy thing NYT did" happened a few years ago, if I recall correctly, and indeed, it might be considered the trend starter.

Personally, I'm very often impressed by work of theverge.com/polygon.com in this regard. Here's just one example: http://www.polygon.com/a/xbox-one-review They perfectly handle the toughest thing, which is the balance between flashiness and readability.

As for the BBC article: I don't like the font choices they've made. A serif (Georgia or Cambria) for body content and sans-serif for distinctions would work better, IMHO.

NKCSS2• 12 years ago

Thank you, that Xbox One article is indeed very awesome.

mercer4• 12 years ago

Yeah, and aside from the font I also felt that the transitions were a bit too abrupt, like they just stitched together a bunch of (in themselves pretty) pages.

The German newspaper 'Die Zeit' has been experimenting with this style as well, to the point of (as I understand it) starting Zeit Online as a completely separate department in Berlin.

For example (in German): http://www.zeit.de/kultur/karl-marx-allee/index.html#prolog http://www.zeit.de/sport/tour-de-france.html

Generally they're a little more subdued and their work, so far, is not as technologically impressive. But I might actually prefer that.

anvandare• 12 years ago

An example, I'm afraid, of situations that happen all too often around the world. When we look at the justice system as any other abstract system (with positive/negative feedback loops) we find that the actors (the judges, prosecutors, investigators, etc.) are never rewarded for finding the truth. After all, how can you ever know that you found the truth? They are rewarded for finding a truth. For making the picture fit.

And that is why you should never collaborate with (or trust) the system. They aren't interested in what's good for you, they are interested in what's good for themselves: finding someone to convict and thereby pushing their yearly evaluation into the positives.

[ed.: typo]

moconnor• 12 years ago

This is an interesting insight into the dangers of ill-chosen metrics. It could only happen in a system in which the police were expected to produce (and were in various ways rewarded for) convictions instead of e.g. a maximally accurate presentation of events that can be used to decide how society should respond.

Convictions are far easier to measure (and achieve, of course). How would you go about constructing an efficient, corruption-resistant system that is measured by its accuracy? It seems like a hard problem, but not necessarily an unsolvable one.

Debugging support issues sometimes feels like this. If you go into a complex system looking for bugs then you'll find plenty - but not necessarily the one that's causing the current issue. What you're really looking for is to fully understand the reason the system does what it does. And then you can change it.

Also: further evidence that information produced under torture cannot be relied upon, yet our states still do this. Perhaps sometimes it works? Or is it just very successful in producing "information" that the system wants and expects to receive, which is then interpreted as an objective success that validates the method?

Kind of difficult to study that.

Perhaps an "ends cannot be used to justify means" principle is simply a necessary precondition for benevolent civilization.

Centigonal• 12 years ago

A nice formulation of the first part of yout post is Goodhart's Law: If you use a correlated metric to measure something qualitative, people will optimize toward the metric, and it'll stop correlating.

Some reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law

http://lesswrong.com/lw/1ws/the_importance_of_goodharts_law/

brazzy2• 12 years ago

Also: further evidence that information produced under torture cannot be relied upon, yet our states still do this. Perhaps sometimes it works? Or is it just very successful in producing "information" that the system wants and expects to receive, which is then interpreted as an objective success that validates the method?

Both, really. There is certainly a small class of scenarios where it does work, but you cannot know in advance where your case is in that class. And is great at making it look like you're "getting results" if you don't look to closely.

Another factor: torture is definitely good for maintaining a "reign of terror" style of regime. Until it isn't. I think there's even a passage in Macchiavelli's "The Prince" (i.e. the opus that basically coined the "end justify means" meme) that says ruling people by making them love you is most effective but impossible to do all the time, so ruling through fear is the next best thing - yet one should carefully avoid being hated.

Perhaps an "ends cannot be used to justify means" principle is simply a necessary precondition for benevolent civilization.

As a basic principle, definitely. Though no simple rule can solve all moral dilemmas.

simonh• 12 years ago

...They aren't interested in what's good for you, they are interested in what's good for themselves:...

Very true, but then that's why the aversarial justice system is so important. It's ok for prosecutors and police to use every means legally at their disposal to try and prove someone guilty, as long as that person has an independent advocate with sufficient authority to protect the accused and challenge the prosecution case.

The problem here is that the way these people were treated was perfectly legal and even morally acceptable at the time. Clearly lengthy unecessary periods of solitary confinement, drugs and agressive interrogation without an advocate present should be completely unacceptable. They even used simulated drowning. The paraelells to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the treatment of Bradley Manning and CIA waterboarding are stark. It's pretty clear that these kind of abuses simply do not work.

People subjected to these treatments will say, and even come to believe absolutely anything, so any information that comes out of such processes is worthless. That's completely aside from the deep immorality of using such techniques in the first place. ALl it does is provides moral cover and justification for oppressive regimes to use such techniques completely indiscriminately.

arethuza2• 12 years ago

Is the adversarial system really any better or worse than the inquisitorial system (I believe they use the latter in Iceland):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adversarial_system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system

roel_v• 12 years ago

<snip> agressive interrogation without an advocate present should be completely unacceptable <snip>

LOL, that is the standard in much of Europe today. That is of course not incongruent with what you said - it just nuances your 'at the time'.

threatofrain2• 12 years ago

It doesn't make sense to me to say that torture is ineffective simply because subjects have incentive in the face of torture to say or believe anything.

For example, it doesn't matter if a person keeps on outputting contradictory claims of reality. What matters is if this person can produce evidence of novel knowledge. And of course even if someone delivered information in a non-tortuous interrogation, any government would fact-check.

I also don't believe it's very easy to confuse someone's existing memories. I don't think I can simply torture somebody, with professionals and equipment at my disposal, and cause discrete changes in beliefs ("My real name is Reek!").

These world governments no doubt have data on varying techniques of torture, and I have no doubt there has been a very long race, begun awhile ago, to map out the theory of torture, and I think it is a bit preliminary to say that torture doesn't work until we get a hold of some systematically collected data.

dllthomas2• 12 years ago

"It's ok for prosecutors and police to use every means legally at their disposal to try and prove someone guilty, as long as that person has an independent advocate with sufficient authority to protect the accused and challenge the prosecution case."

I don't necessarily agree with that. The defense should be using every means available, the prosecution should restrict themselves to things that get at the truth. As extreme examples, presenting fabricated evidence or withholding exculpatory evidence would clearly be unacceptable even if laws were changed to allow it. I am not remotely confident that laws proscribe everything they should proscribe.

klausjensen• 12 years ago

The woman involved, Erla Bolladottir, was my Icelandic language teacher when I moved to Iceland. She is an extraordinarily kind and helpful person, and it angers and saddens me that she has been put through this nightmare because of lousy police-work and ill will.

jacquesm2• 12 years ago

What a story. So many lives wasted, torture and forced confessions. There are no reparations possible for cases like this, no amount of compensation will turn back the clock and no punishment sufficient to go after the guilty parties (in uniform, no less), assuming they are still alive.

But when you read things like this you inevitably question if what we call 'civilization' really is all that civilized. Iceland is a small nation, relatively few people and tightly knit. It's one of the last places on earth where I would expect a thing like this to happen.

If this could happen there it could happen just about anywhere.

And they are still at it (from TFA):

"For the past year, the 486-page report of the investigation into the original police inquiry has been sitting on a desk somewhere inside the state prosecutor’s office. She has to decide whether the case should be referred to Iceland’s supreme court so the convictions can be quashed."

toyg• 12 years ago

If this could happen there it could happen just about anywhere.

"Could"? This does happen everywhere, routinely, every day. Most of it happens to people nobody cares about (foreigners, displaced, lone wolfs, drug addicts, mentally ill, smalltime crooks etc etc). Some of it is corrected with time (which is why you have appeals and counter-appeals in most systems). There is just no incentive for a police force not to incriminate, and little for a judicial system not to convict.

For the past year, the 486-page report [...] has been sitting on a desk

... and it will likely sit there until all the implicated people have retired and/or they are 100% sure the Icelandic equivalent to the statute of limitations will cover all of them. Because people with related responsibilities know that, in a few years, the same could happen to them for whatever reason, and then who would look after them? At the time, "persuading" a little crook to confess a crime he didn't commit was a perfectly acceptable standard; who knows what standards will be in 20 years time? So invariably these institutions will "let bygones be bygones".

The whole concept of institutional policing is extremely flawed.

throwaway77673• 12 years ago

and it will likely sit there until all the implicated people have retired and/or they are 100% sure the Icelandic equivalent to the statute of limitations will cover all of them.

This is not an issue. The statute of limitations in Iceland depends on the possible length of the prison sentence for the crime. The maximum is 15 years, so that's long since passed in all cases.

LaSombra• 12 years ago

It seems that's the tool used by BBC.

http://shorthand.com/

sesqu2• 12 years ago

I don't know how much of it comes out of the box, but the article was impressive in in more than just its writing. The only slight annoyances I encountered were the way some pictures appeared too late and the videos lacked length and subject information. Everything else was well paced, relevant and unintrusive.

I hope Shorthand gets picked by more long-form producers.

heidar• 12 years ago

I heard of this case growing up and it has always been considered a mystery in Iceland. I haven't followed it closely but this is the best write up of the case I've seen; impressive work by BBC.

While I'm not defending the investigators, a lot has changed in 40 years and even though this might be unacceptable today it was probably different then (as stated in the article). It's very sad to listen to these people talk about how they were treated though.

rwmj• 12 years ago

There doesn't seem much mystery about the first death. A drunk man walks 10 km through freezing cold and snow late at night in winter. Didn't anyone think he had just fallen and died of exposure, and his body was lost in a snowdrift?

deong4• 12 years ago

Had he just succumbed to exposure next to a road, they should have found the body quite quickly.

andyjohnson0• 12 years ago

"Geirfinnur Einarsson may have shared the same surname as Gudmundur but the two were not related."

Very minor nitpick. "Einarsson" is a patronymic derived from a parent's given name, not a surname or family name as is common in many western cultures. In the case of the article, Einar is a common Icelandic given name [1] that both victims fathers shared.

The Icelandic naming system [2] is interesting. Basically, children get a given name plus a patronymic (father's give name with son or dóttir suffix) or matronymic (mother's given name with son or dóttir suffix). So people two generations apart in the same family have completely different names, and non-siblings having the same patronymic isn't an indicator of kinship.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einar

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icelandic_name

willvarfar• 12 years ago

Historically it was much the same across Scandinavia.

Most surnames end in son (sen in Denmark) or dotter (daughter), although people started using their parent's surname some time last century.

Its fun to see the tradition survives in Iceland.

In Sweden its becoming slightly trendy to give your children surnames ending in YOUR-FIRST-NAME+possessive+son/dotter again.

Dewie2• 12 years ago

That tradition, or the remnants of it (as in retaining -sen as a family name rather than as a patronymic) seem to have almost disappeared in my part of Norway.

Hansi• 12 years ago

Yeah this alway made for fun holidays when I was a kid; my dad last name is Ólafsson, my mom's Magnusdóttir, my sister's Hlynsdóttir and mine Hlynsson. Hotel staff often could not get that at all.

gislifb• 12 years ago

Hah, add to that the confusion that me and my sister have the patronymic from our father's second name.

Sharlin3• 12 years ago

The article does, however, correctly refer to people by their given names. You would never refer to Geirfinnur Einarsson by "Einarsson" or "Mr. Einarsson"; even in a formal context, even if he were the president or other high-status person, you'd use either "Geirfinnur" or "Geirfinnur Einarsson".

avar2• 12 years ago

Interestingly thought it's easy to find press releases and related material from the Icelandic government itself which uses Icelandic patronyms as surnames. E.g. [1] from the Icelandic Minstry for Foreign Affairs referring to the foreign minister, Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson as "Mr. Sveinsson".

1. http://eng.utanrikisraduneyti.is/news-and-publications/nr/77...

rimantas• 12 years ago

Russians have an interesting mix there. Family name is used, but it is common to address the person by given name and patronymic.

eshvk• 12 years ago

Yes, this patronymic naming is common in South Asia. Except they go one step further and put the surname in front of the given name. So if your father's name is X and your personal name is Y, formally you are called X Y.

I am from Africa where this weird inconsistency meant that many of my personal records have my given name as my dad's name and my name as my surname. Made the paper trail confusing as fuck when I came to America and had to prove that I was who I was.

nichochar• 12 years ago

Hacker News is really being taken over by non hacker stuff. Interesting article, nice design, but don't really expect things like this here

duncanawoods• 12 years ago

I thought it was posted for its design which is a bit OTT for me. I'm pleasantly surprised to find people talking about the content - IMHO thats quite healthy :)

grahamel• 12 years ago

I thought so as well(on the design) as the zooming and image changes are too distracting when reading the content

vacri2• 12 years ago

There's still a similar amount of hacker stuff in the listings, but the 'interesting tidbits' seem to have pushed out the business half of HN's mission. There's barely an article these days about capturing an clientelle or hiring practices or similar.

Dewie2• 12 years ago

If you don't like it (I'm unsure from your wording), are you doing your part by going on new and upvoting the submissions that you do like?

espadrine• 12 years ago

I don't mind reading outstanding non-tech work on a news rating website for hackers once in a while.

If it disturbs you, think of it this way: it's a successfully executed exercise in data mining minds.

carlob2• 12 years ago

In good HN spirit, instead of praising the great quality of the article, I'll point out a minor nitpick:

Geirfinnur Einarsson may have shared the same surname as Gudmundur but the two were not related.

Einarsson is not a surname, but a patronymic. It's weird that later in the article it reads:

Erla is longing for peace, so that future generations, the sons and dottirs of her grandchildren will know she was innocent and didn’t take part in a murder.

Here the author seems to grasp and even make a clever pun on Icelandic patronymics. Weird.

vacri2• 12 years ago

A patronymic is functionally a surname. 'sur' means over- or on-; it's an additional part of a personal name. Wikipedia puts it well: "A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name". Surnames a generally a function of who you were born to, rather than a choice, just like a patronymic.

Sharlin3• 12 years ago

But patronymics are not used in Iceland the way surnames are used in the Anglosphere. For instance, even in a formal context, Geirfinnur Einarsson would not be referred to as "Einarsson" or "Mr. Einarsson". Also, Icelandic phonebooks are ordered primarily by given name.

carlob2• 12 years ago

Well the comment was about people with the same surname being likely relatives. Knowing how patronymics work you would not assume that two persons that share the patronymic are related, just that their fathers have the same name.

You are right in that they are actually a surname, and that they are also a function of who you were born to, but the propagation rule means that they are a much poorer metric for blood relations.

mercer4• 12 years ago

I read it as the author raising a question that the reader might have, or sharing their process in understanding this fact.

brohee• 12 years ago

People confess to crimes they didn't commit all the time, yet confessions are the end game in most judicial systems, way over hard proofs... A very sad state of affairs...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/why-do-inno...

And obligatory, Jame's Duane's "Don't talk to the cops" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkZf6_jK3Zs

andreasvc• 12 years ago

Not talking to the police wouldn't have helped the 5 people from the article (although having a lawyer would have helped). They would play a prisoner's dilemma against you, or tell you "your 4 buddies confessed and implicated you, just confess and get a lighter sentence".

Zigurd• 12 years ago

This is one more reason why police and prosecutors should be individually bonded. This would pay, up front, for liability, and it would wash out the careless and incompetent.

Without institutional incentives to produce good results, the incentives to produce more results, faster results, and more lurid results will continue to produce bad results.

warrenmiller• 12 years ago

also on BBC radio 4 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0435jz1

nkoren• 12 years ago

For a truly amazing look into how false confessions occur -- told from the point of view of an officer who inadvertently extracted one, and took over a decade to recognise his error -- act one of this This American Life episode is a must-listen:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/507/c...

The Reykjavik Confessions

Related Stories