Allison D. Redlich

Associate Chair

Distinguished University Professor

Guilty pleas, interrogations and confessions, wrongful convictions, mental health courts, and experimental criminology

Allison Redlich is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University, the past President of the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS; 2019-22), and the 2025 Beck Family Presidential Medal for Excellence in Faculty Research recipient. In 2022-23, she was a Visiting Scholar at Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice, University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law. She was trained as an experimental psychologist but uses multiple methods to conduct her research. To a large degree, her research centers on whether legal decision-making is knowing, intelligent, and voluntary. She examines such decision-making in vulnerable (juveniles and persons with mental health problems) and non-vulnerable defendants, and across several different contexts—in the interrogation room, during the guilty plea process, and in mental health courts. Professor Redlich also studies wrongful convictions, with a particular focus on false confessions and false guilty pleas. In addition to publishing numerous articles on these and related topics, she has co-authored/edited six books, including a volume on the science of pleading guilty (with Edkins), which was awarded the AP-LS Lawrence Wrightsman book award. To pursue her research, Professor Redlich has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security/CINA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and others. She especially enjoys working with and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students, and has been awarded teaching-mentoring awards from two national societies.

Selected Publications

Redlich, A.D. & Quas, J.A. (2024). (Eds.). The Handbook on Developmental Psychology and the Law. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Petersen, K., Johnson, B.D., Galvin, M., & Redlich, A.D. (in press). The hidden discount: Examining racial disparity in the use of suspended sentences. Criminology.

Kelly, C.J. & Redlich, A.D. (in press). The changing landscape of police interrogation. Annual Review of Criminology.

Redlich, A.D., Becker, L. Dervan, L.E., Donnelly, M.P., Frazier, A., Gallen, M., Gazal Ayal, O., Helm, R.K., Johnson, B.D., MacLean, E., Reiner, N.L., Wilford, M.M., & Zottoli, T.M. (2025). Urgent issues and prospects in guilty plea research and practice. Legal and Criminological Psychology.

Kassin, S., Cleary, H.M., Gudjonsson, G., Leo, R., Meissner, C.A., Redlich, A.D., & Scherr, K. (2025). Police induced confessions, 2.0: Risk factors and recommendations. Law and Human Behavior, 49, 7-53.

*Catlin, M., *Bettens, T., Scherr, K., & Redlich, A.D. (2025). The biasing role of false admissions in exoneree reintegration and compensation. Law and Human Behavior.

Dissertations Supervised

Mary Catlin, The Role of Communication in Plea Bargaining and Plea Decision-Making (2025)

Samantha Luna, Defining Coercion During Plea Negotiations (2023)

Amy Dezember, Examining Alford Pleas and the Presumption of Strong Evidence (2021)