Great article below addressing how that works: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2

Great article below addressing how that works: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-peo... It's worth knowing that the prosecutors have incentives to convict as many people as possible while defendents often don't know the strength of the case. Prosecutors and cops can also lie to get a confession. Combine the two and you can get a lot of innocent people to confess just doing basic math on what they're offered vs what they'll probably get for fighting back.