The Innocent Prisoner's Dilemma:
Just Tell Them What They Want to Hear!
Okay, first, if it seems like at times I'm a bit flippant about what are very serious charges, being wrongfully convicted, and having spent time in prison, it's only because of the sheer absurdity of it all, and how easily people can be so stupid and blinded to the obvious abuser in the equation. (But Kiwis, like Americans, are not very good at math, so there you go. I'm not making this up, either. They really suck at math. (Gerritsen 2023; Yu 2024)) I mean, just consider some of the very revealing statements my ex partner was saying in the weeks before I was arrested:
“If you want me to ruin this school, I will. Personally, with my bare hands, okay?
And I'll suffocate it. Do not fuck with me.”
“I am ending [the school] and hiring someone to run it from scratch...
I already have a plan, don't worry.”
“I'll get the police involved...And the school will end then.”
“And don't forget to ask the government for the dole when you get out, because you'll be needing it. Because no one will hire you, that I know.”
Calling the police? “When you get out”? “No one will hire you”? Do the math! And that's just a little snippet. I have pages and pages of more. So you'd have to forgive me for being a bit angry about how stupid (and yet so confident) New Zealanders can be, and especially at the idiocy and corruption of the legal system and those involved. Then again, the country is getting dumber and dumber. And again, I'm not making this up. (Sowman-Lund 2024)
At Mt. Eden Prison in Auckland, Dale*, a meth dealer and fellow prisoner, one day said to me, “There's something about you that makes people want to fuck with you.” (I liked talking with Dale - he was always trying to convince me that I should try drug dealing, too.) But I disagreed with what he said. It's that certain types of people - the toxic sort - are the ones who like to mess with healthy people. And that's because they're very insecure about themselves, and because they know they will never be emotionally healthy, they feel compelled to ruin the lives of people who are healthy.
And so I ended up in prison.
But the more important question is, why would a person admit to a crime that they didn't do? Well, unless you've spent one minute inside a prison, then you might have difficulty understanding why. People do it all the time in order to get out as fast as possible. Prison not only sucks because there's no Wi-Fi, but it's also State-approved and socially-approved torture and abuse. It's revenge, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in every way imaginable. (And yet it's supposed to be “rehabilitative” at the same time, which is complete idiocy. But what would you expect from the State?) It's the most unhealthy social and psychological environment a person can possibly be in (except, perhaps, the White House.) Many of the inmates already have psychological issues, made even worse by the conditions. (Just like those in the White House.) The guards are generally ignorant, uneducated, and not just apathetic, but sadistic. The doctors don't care unless you're passed-out on the floor, on the verge of death. The food is poison. And being cut off from friends, family, and the wider community is emotional abuse. So let's not act surprised that a person would say anything in order to get out as soon as possible.
In fact, conditions in prison amount to duress, just like you'd find in any traditional police (or FBI or KGB or gestapo) interrogation, which is meant to apply so much pressure that the detainee “just admits it.” That's why the police end up with so many false admissions. They don't usually care, because public perception is all that matters - “The police got the guy! Hurrah!” This was the exact aim of the U.S. government holding prisoners - supposed “terrorists” - in Guantanamo Bay for years. The Bush administration knew that they were innocent, but blatantly said that none would be released without admitting guilt. A U.S. interrogator told detainee Fouad al-Rabiah:
There is [no evidence] against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent. (quoted in Hicks 2010, p.272, emphasis added)
They needed to justify to the world that it wasn't all just a big shit-show. (And looky-here, now Trump is re-opening Guantanamo. The shit-show continues.) Tell them what they want to hear.
This coercion is clear in the U.S., where more than 95 percent of all cases end in a plea bargain. Why? Coercion by the prosecution. So much for the presumption of innocence! Take the deal or else. (Medwed 2022; Reutter 2021) Emily Yoffe wrote for the Atlantic that “Plea bargaining has become so coercive that many innocent people feel they have no option but to plead guilty.” (Yoffe 2017) Exactly. And according to Maddy deLone, the executive director of the Innocence Project, “Our system makes it a rational choice to plead guilty to something you didn’t do.” (quoted in Yoffe, 2017) The pressure is on: tell them what they want to hear. They want to hear that everyone is guilty!
Once I lost the trial, a lawyer told me immediately, “Admit guilt now, say you're sorry, and you might get a lower sentence.” I did that, and it didn't help. Judge Webby was gunning for me, contradicted his own advice to the jury, and ignored key facts. (It also didn't help that I had told him that prison was a ridiculous way to deal with anti-social behavior and that it failed to make society safer. While that was all true, I should have known better. Darn it, I couldn't just keep my mouth shut!) So he gave it to me good.
There was no way I was prepared to serve the entire sentence. But how to get out? Dig a tunnel? A re-trial? Ha! My first lawyer (good, old, useless Reece) already stole all my money and threw the case. A court-appointed lawyer would do even worse - and I had heard plenty of horror stories about court-appointed lawyers from other prisoners: lawyers not communicating, not listening, not showing up to hearings, not being prepared, having terrible breath, and generally just making things worse. Plus, inside New Zealand prisons, no one has access to a legal library. It's almost impossible to represent yourself, because there's no way to find helpful information on your own. Then consider that New Zealand judges don't like to grant re-trials - because it makes the legal system look suspect, and they also don't want to upset other judges. Finally, juries are made up of people who couldn't figure out how to get out of jury duty - or they're just looking to convict someone - and, if the general public is anything to go by, they have no knowledge of the law, no knowledge of human psychology, and have had their brains dumbed-down by iPhones. Now, even if I had wanted to gamble again on the legal system (terrible odds), it would still have taken perhaps two years to even get to a new trial! (The courts still being backed up from COVID, and the new National Party government trying to increase the prison population so they could look “tough on crime,” putting additional strain on the corrupt system, and only increasing crime in the process.) I'd have better luck digging my way out.
On the other hand, my first parole would come after one year, ten months. That gave me the best odds, by far. But in New Zealand, no parole board grants a first parole unless a prisoner assumes guilt. In the U.S. there is similar behavior by the parole boards. Hence, Professor Daniel Medwed's term, “The Innocent Prisoner's Dilemma”:
Given the barriers that state and federal post-conviction procedures impose on litigating innocence claims through the courts, especially in cases lacking biological evidence capable of DNA testing, it is likely that a sizable number of innocent prisoners remain incarcerated; for many of them, release on parole comprises the best opportunity for procuring their freedom. As a result, discounting the legitimacy of prisoner assertions of innocence at parole hearings and overvaluing acknowledgments of responsibility, as appears to be the modus operandi for state parole boards, punishes an unknown and possibly substantial group of inmates. Even more, it produces a true “innocent prisoner’s dilemma.” Inmates must select between admitting guilt and improving the chances for parole—with potentially disastrous effects on any post-conviction innocence claim in the courts—and maintaining innocence and essentially ruining any possibility of parole. (Medwed 2008, p. 556, emphasis added)
What's even more interesting is that the whole reliance on prisoners admitting guilt contradicts studies that shows there is no connection between admitting guilt and recidivism. (Harkins et al, 2014) The stupidity of the legal system continues.
But admitting guilt is what the system believes in and wants. Mike Butler, writing about the suspicious case of New Zealand farmer Allan Titford, wrote:
The system expects an admission of guilt. If a prisoner does not admit guilt and demonstrate remorse, there is no possibility of parole and the prisoner should expect to serve out the entire sentence. The prisoner can say a wrongful admission of guilt is just as much a lie as a wrongful claim of innocence. A person wrongfully imprisoned may feel like he or she is being suffocated. (Butler 2018, p.204)
When you're trapped in a system based on lies, you end up being forced to lie. It's all a bunch of cons. The legal system is a great, big “long con.” It only continues because we believe the lie that it provides “justice” and helps make society safer, by locking up “criminals” in brutal conditions as punishment. Within that long con, are short cons, that the lawyers and judges run. The Crown prosecutor in my case ran his short con by manipulating and deceiving the jury. His aim was not justice or truth, but to win, because winning convictions is how prosecutors are measured, promoted, and get paid. My own lawyer ran his own short con, gaining my trust, then taking my money and throwing the case. That was the role expected of him by the State. (Though a friend did say to me, “Maybe your ex slept with him.” Funny but doubtful.) Thus, within this institution full of cons, I was forced to run my own short con in order to get out, by claiming to be guilty. And the institution doesn't even care if your guilt is believable - they just want anything to point to as justification for their existence and to point to their legitimacy. Like an insecure narcissist, they just need constant affirmation and validation and to maintain the appearance of respectability. (Greenberg 2025) Kind of like how the U.S. uses its elections every couple of years to give a facade of being a “democracy,” when in fact it's just a kleptocracy running a police state.
In any case, just like North Korea psychologically torturing captured U.S. servicemen seventy years ago until they went on TV to denounce the U.S., all illegitimate (i.e. narcissistic) authorities - judges, parole boards, police interrogators, government agents, bureaucrats, and even narcissistic mothers and fathers - they all act the same way and all want the same thing: constant validation in the form of, “Just tell me what I want to hear!” If not, they'll keep bringing the pain.
Got it now? Just tell them what they want to hear.
* Not his real name. But the other names in this piece are real.
References
Butler, Mike. (2018). 24 Years: The Trials of Allan Titford. Limestone Bluff Publishing.
Gerritsen, John. (Dec 6, 2023). “NZ records worst ever PISA international test results, amid global decline”. Retrieved from https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/504020/nz-records-worst-ever-pisa-international-test-results-amid-global-decline
Greenberg, Ellnor. (Jan 31, 2025). “Why Do Narcissists Need Other People to Validate Them?” Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-narcissism/202501/why-do-narcissists-need-other-people-to-validate-them
Harkins, Leigh & Howard, Philip & Barnett, Georgia & Wakeling, Helen & Miles, Cerys. (2014). “Relationships Between Denial, Risk, and Recidivism in Sexual Offenders.” Archives of Aexual Behavior. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264641241_Relationships_Between_Denial_Risk_and_Recidivism_in_Sexual_Offenders
Hicks, David. (2010). Guantanamo: My Journey. William Heinemann.
Medwed, Daniel. (Oct 4, 2022). “How many innocent people is the plea bargain sending to prison?” Retrieved from https://bigthink.com/the-present/plea-bargain-innocent-people-prison/
Medwed, Daniel. (2008). “The Innocent Prisoner’s Dilemma: Consequences of Failing to Admit Guilt at Parole Hearings.” Iowa Law Review, Vol 93. Retrieved from https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/medwed_the_innocent_prisoners_dilemma_consequences_of_failing_to_admit_guilt_at_parole_hearings_2008.pdf
Reutter, David. (May 2021). “Study Shows Innocent People Choose False Guilty Pleas and False Testimony to Gain Benefits”. Criminal Legal News. Retrieved from https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2021/may/15/study-shows-innocent-people-choose-false-guilty-pleas-and-false-testimony-gain-benefits/
Sowman-Lund, Stewart. (June 13,2024). “‘Brain drain’ déjà vu as New Zealanders leave the country in record numbers”. Retrieved from https://thespinoff.co.nz/the-bulletin/13-06-2024/brain-drain-deja-vu-as-new-zealanders-leave-the-country-in-record-numbers
Yoffe, Emily. (Sept 2017). “Innocence Is Irrelevant”. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocence-is-irrelevant/534171/
Yu, Yi-Jin. (Dec 5, 2024). “US students' declining math scores are 'sobering,' expert says”. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/us-students-declining-math-scores-sobering-expert/story?id=116481011
Joey Moncarz
“If you want me to ruin this school, I will. Personally, with my bare hands, okay?
And I'll suffocate it. Do not fuck with me.”
“I am ending [the school] and hiring someone to run it from scratch...
I already have a plan, don't worry.”
“I'll get the police involved...And the school will end then.”
“And don't forget to ask the government for the dole when you get out, because you'll be needing it. Because no one will hire you, that I know.”
Calling the police? “When you get out”? “No one will hire you”? Do the math! And that's just a little snippet. I have pages and pages of more. So you'd have to forgive me for being a bit angry about how stupid (and yet so confident) New Zealanders can be, and especially at the idiocy and corruption of the legal system and those involved. Then again, the country is getting dumber and dumber. And again, I'm not making this up. (Sowman-Lund 2024)
At Mt. Eden Prison in Auckland, Dale*, a meth dealer and fellow prisoner, one day said to me, “There's something about you that makes people want to fuck with you.” (I liked talking with Dale - he was always trying to convince me that I should try drug dealing, too.) But I disagreed with what he said. It's that certain types of people - the toxic sort - are the ones who like to mess with healthy people. And that's because they're very insecure about themselves, and because they know they will never be emotionally healthy, they feel compelled to ruin the lives of people who are healthy.
And so I ended up in prison.
But the more important question is, why would a person admit to a crime that they didn't do? Well, unless you've spent one minute inside a prison, then you might have difficulty understanding why. People do it all the time in order to get out as fast as possible. Prison not only sucks because there's no Wi-Fi, but it's also State-approved and socially-approved torture and abuse. It's revenge, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, in every way imaginable. (And yet it's supposed to be “rehabilitative” at the same time, which is complete idiocy. But what would you expect from the State?) It's the most unhealthy social and psychological environment a person can possibly be in (except, perhaps, the White House.) Many of the inmates already have psychological issues, made even worse by the conditions. (Just like those in the White House.) The guards are generally ignorant, uneducated, and not just apathetic, but sadistic. The doctors don't care unless you're passed-out on the floor, on the verge of death. The food is poison. And being cut off from friends, family, and the wider community is emotional abuse. So let's not act surprised that a person would say anything in order to get out as soon as possible.
In fact, conditions in prison amount to duress, just like you'd find in any traditional police (or FBI or KGB or gestapo) interrogation, which is meant to apply so much pressure that the detainee “just admits it.” That's why the police end up with so many false admissions. They don't usually care, because public perception is all that matters - “The police got the guy! Hurrah!” This was the exact aim of the U.S. government holding prisoners - supposed “terrorists” - in Guantanamo Bay for years. The Bush administration knew that they were innocent, but blatantly said that none would be released without admitting guilt. A U.S. interrogator told detainee Fouad al-Rabiah:
There is [no evidence] against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent. (quoted in Hicks 2010, p.272, emphasis added)
They needed to justify to the world that it wasn't all just a big shit-show. (And looky-here, now Trump is re-opening Guantanamo. The shit-show continues.) Tell them what they want to hear.
This coercion is clear in the U.S., where more than 95 percent of all cases end in a plea bargain. Why? Coercion by the prosecution. So much for the presumption of innocence! Take the deal or else. (Medwed 2022; Reutter 2021) Emily Yoffe wrote for the Atlantic that “Plea bargaining has become so coercive that many innocent people feel they have no option but to plead guilty.” (Yoffe 2017) Exactly. And according to Maddy deLone, the executive director of the Innocence Project, “Our system makes it a rational choice to plead guilty to something you didn’t do.” (quoted in Yoffe, 2017) The pressure is on: tell them what they want to hear. They want to hear that everyone is guilty!
Once I lost the trial, a lawyer told me immediately, “Admit guilt now, say you're sorry, and you might get a lower sentence.” I did that, and it didn't help. Judge Webby was gunning for me, contradicted his own advice to the jury, and ignored key facts. (It also didn't help that I had told him that prison was a ridiculous way to deal with anti-social behavior and that it failed to make society safer. While that was all true, I should have known better. Darn it, I couldn't just keep my mouth shut!) So he gave it to me good.
There was no way I was prepared to serve the entire sentence. But how to get out? Dig a tunnel? A re-trial? Ha! My first lawyer (good, old, useless Reece) already stole all my money and threw the case. A court-appointed lawyer would do even worse - and I had heard plenty of horror stories about court-appointed lawyers from other prisoners: lawyers not communicating, not listening, not showing up to hearings, not being prepared, having terrible breath, and generally just making things worse. Plus, inside New Zealand prisons, no one has access to a legal library. It's almost impossible to represent yourself, because there's no way to find helpful information on your own. Then consider that New Zealand judges don't like to grant re-trials - because it makes the legal system look suspect, and they also don't want to upset other judges. Finally, juries are made up of people who couldn't figure out how to get out of jury duty - or they're just looking to convict someone - and, if the general public is anything to go by, they have no knowledge of the law, no knowledge of human psychology, and have had their brains dumbed-down by iPhones. Now, even if I had wanted to gamble again on the legal system (terrible odds), it would still have taken perhaps two years to even get to a new trial! (The courts still being backed up from COVID, and the new National Party government trying to increase the prison population so they could look “tough on crime,” putting additional strain on the corrupt system, and only increasing crime in the process.) I'd have better luck digging my way out.
On the other hand, my first parole would come after one year, ten months. That gave me the best odds, by far. But in New Zealand, no parole board grants a first parole unless a prisoner assumes guilt. In the U.S. there is similar behavior by the parole boards. Hence, Professor Daniel Medwed's term, “The Innocent Prisoner's Dilemma”:
Given the barriers that state and federal post-conviction procedures impose on litigating innocence claims through the courts, especially in cases lacking biological evidence capable of DNA testing, it is likely that a sizable number of innocent prisoners remain incarcerated; for many of them, release on parole comprises the best opportunity for procuring their freedom. As a result, discounting the legitimacy of prisoner assertions of innocence at parole hearings and overvaluing acknowledgments of responsibility, as appears to be the modus operandi for state parole boards, punishes an unknown and possibly substantial group of inmates. Even more, it produces a true “innocent prisoner’s dilemma.” Inmates must select between admitting guilt and improving the chances for parole—with potentially disastrous effects on any post-conviction innocence claim in the courts—and maintaining innocence and essentially ruining any possibility of parole. (Medwed 2008, p. 556, emphasis added)
What's even more interesting is that the whole reliance on prisoners admitting guilt contradicts studies that shows there is no connection between admitting guilt and recidivism. (Harkins et al, 2014) The stupidity of the legal system continues.
But admitting guilt is what the system believes in and wants. Mike Butler, writing about the suspicious case of New Zealand farmer Allan Titford, wrote:
The system expects an admission of guilt. If a prisoner does not admit guilt and demonstrate remorse, there is no possibility of parole and the prisoner should expect to serve out the entire sentence. The prisoner can say a wrongful admission of guilt is just as much a lie as a wrongful claim of innocence. A person wrongfully imprisoned may feel like he or she is being suffocated. (Butler 2018, p.204)
When you're trapped in a system based on lies, you end up being forced to lie. It's all a bunch of cons. The legal system is a great, big “long con.” It only continues because we believe the lie that it provides “justice” and helps make society safer, by locking up “criminals” in brutal conditions as punishment. Within that long con, are short cons, that the lawyers and judges run. The Crown prosecutor in my case ran his short con by manipulating and deceiving the jury. His aim was not justice or truth, but to win, because winning convictions is how prosecutors are measured, promoted, and get paid. My own lawyer ran his own short con, gaining my trust, then taking my money and throwing the case. That was the role expected of him by the State. (Though a friend did say to me, “Maybe your ex slept with him.” Funny but doubtful.) Thus, within this institution full of cons, I was forced to run my own short con in order to get out, by claiming to be guilty. And the institution doesn't even care if your guilt is believable - they just want anything to point to as justification for their existence and to point to their legitimacy. Like an insecure narcissist, they just need constant affirmation and validation and to maintain the appearance of respectability. (Greenberg 2025) Kind of like how the U.S. uses its elections every couple of years to give a facade of being a “democracy,” when in fact it's just a kleptocracy running a police state.
In any case, just like North Korea psychologically torturing captured U.S. servicemen seventy years ago until they went on TV to denounce the U.S., all illegitimate (i.e. narcissistic) authorities - judges, parole boards, police interrogators, government agents, bureaucrats, and even narcissistic mothers and fathers - they all act the same way and all want the same thing: constant validation in the form of, “Just tell me what I want to hear!” If not, they'll keep bringing the pain.
Got it now? Just tell them what they want to hear.
* Not his real name. But the other names in this piece are real.
References
Butler, Mike. (2018). 24 Years: The Trials of Allan Titford. Limestone Bluff Publishing.
Gerritsen, John. (Dec 6, 2023). “NZ records worst ever PISA international test results, amid global decline”. Retrieved from https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/504020/nz-records-worst-ever-pisa-international-test-results-amid-global-decline
Greenberg, Ellnor. (Jan 31, 2025). “Why Do Narcissists Need Other People to Validate Them?” Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-narcissism/202501/why-do-narcissists-need-other-people-to-validate-them
Harkins, Leigh & Howard, Philip & Barnett, Georgia & Wakeling, Helen & Miles, Cerys. (2014). “Relationships Between Denial, Risk, and Recidivism in Sexual Offenders.” Archives of Aexual Behavior. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264641241_Relationships_Between_Denial_Risk_and_Recidivism_in_Sexual_Offenders
Hicks, David. (2010). Guantanamo: My Journey. William Heinemann.
Medwed, Daniel. (Oct 4, 2022). “How many innocent people is the plea bargain sending to prison?” Retrieved from https://bigthink.com/the-present/plea-bargain-innocent-people-prison/
Medwed, Daniel. (2008). “The Innocent Prisoner’s Dilemma: Consequences of Failing to Admit Guilt at Parole Hearings.” Iowa Law Review, Vol 93. Retrieved from https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/medwed_the_innocent_prisoners_dilemma_consequences_of_failing_to_admit_guilt_at_parole_hearings_2008.pdf
Reutter, David. (May 2021). “Study Shows Innocent People Choose False Guilty Pleas and False Testimony to Gain Benefits”. Criminal Legal News. Retrieved from https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2021/may/15/study-shows-innocent-people-choose-false-guilty-pleas-and-false-testimony-gain-benefits/
Sowman-Lund, Stewart. (June 13,2024). “‘Brain drain’ déjà vu as New Zealanders leave the country in record numbers”. Retrieved from https://thespinoff.co.nz/the-bulletin/13-06-2024/brain-drain-deja-vu-as-new-zealanders-leave-the-country-in-record-numbers
Yoffe, Emily. (Sept 2017). “Innocence Is Irrelevant”. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/innocence-is-irrelevant/534171/
Yu, Yi-Jin. (Dec 5, 2024). “US students' declining math scores are 'sobering,' expert says”. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/us-students-declining-math-scores-sobering-expert/story?id=116481011
Joey Moncarz