A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of persons – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information that he believes the other party is not already aware of,
[Roger W. Shuy, ''The Language of Confession, Interrogation, and Deception'' (1998), p. 2–10.] and is frequently associated with an admission of a moral or legal wrong:
Not all confessions reveal wrongdoing, however. For example, a
confession of love is often considered positive both by the confessor and by the recipient of the confession and is a common theme in literature. With respect to confessions of wrongdoing, there are several specific kinds of confessions that have significance beyond the social. A
legal confession involves an
admission of some wrongdoing that has a legal consequence, while the concept of
confession in religion varies widely across various belief systems, and is usually more akin to a
ritual
A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. Rituals are characterized ...
by which the person acknowledges thoughts or actions considered
sinful or morally wrong within the confines of the confessor's religion. In some religions, confession takes the form of an
oral communication
Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focu ...
to another person. Socially, however, the term may refer to admissions that are neither legally nor religiously significant.
Psychology
Confession often benefits the one who is confessing.
Paul Wilkes characterizes confession as "a pillar of mental health" because of its ability to relieve
anxieties associated with keeping
secrets.
Confessants are more likely to confess when the expected benefits outweigh the marginal costs (when the benefit of the offense to them is high, the cost to the victim is low, and the probability of information leakage is high). People may undertake social confessions in order to relieve feelings of guilt or to seek forgiveness from a wronged party, but such confessions may also serve to create social bonds between the confessant and the confessor, and may prompt the listener to reply with confessions of their own.
A person may therefore confess wrongdoing to another person as a means of creating such a social bond, or of extracting
reciprocal
Reciprocal may refer to:
In mathematics
* Multiplicative inverse, in mathematics, the number 1/''x'', which multiplied by ''x'' gives the product 1, also known as a ''reciprocal''
* Reciprocal polynomial, a polynomial obtained from another pol ...
information from the other person.
A confession may be made in a self-aggrandizing manner, as a way for the confessant to claim credit for a misdeed for the purpose of eliciting a reaction to that claim.
Law
In law, there is
an exception to the
hearsay
Hearsay evidence, in a legal forum, is testimony from an under-oath witness who is reciting an out-of-court statement, the content of which is being offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted. In most courts, hearsay evidence is inadmiss ...
rule that allows testimony concerning someone else's confession to be admitted if the statement had a great enough tendency "to expose the declarant to civil or criminal liability". The theory is that a reasonable person would not make such a
false confession
A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interroga ...
. In U.S. law, a confession must be
voluntary
Voluntary may refer to:
* Voluntary (music)
* Voluntary or volunteer, person participating via volunteering/volunteerism
* Voluntary muscle contraction
See also
* Voluntary action
* Voluntariness, in law and philosophy
* Voluntaryism, reje ...
in order to be admissible. Confessions (whether
forced or otherwise) may feature in formal or informal
show trial
A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so ...
s.
In India sections 24 to 30 of
Indian Evidence Act, 1872 deals with confession,but the word confession has not been defined in any
statute
A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by ...
. It has been judicially interpreted to mean an
admission of all the ingredients of an offence.
Pakala Narayan Swami v. Emperor, AIR 1939 PC 47 Section 24 mandates a confession must be voluntary. Section 25 renders invalid a confession made to a
police
The police are a Law enforcement organization, constituted body of Law enforcement officer, persons empowered by a State (polity), state, with the aim to law enforcement, enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citize ...
officer. Section 26 deals with confession in police custody. Section 27 provides the circumstances under which and to what extent a confession in police custody is
admissible.
It reads:
According to section 30 of Indian Evidence Act, when two or more persons are tried jointly, a confession by one accused incriminating himself and others is relevant.
Medicine
Dr. Suzanne Karan, a residency program director at the University of Rochester Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, initiated confessions sessions in residency education. In 2015, Dr. Karan published her research on confessions and it was concluded that the use of confessions sessions provided an opportunity to reflect, discuss, and admit without fear of punitive actions and allowed for early intervention on the issues that are relevant to physician trainees.
Socialisation
Public confessions play a role in
struggle session
Denunciation rallies, also called struggle sessions, were violent public spectacles in Maoist China where people accused of being "Five Black Categories, class enemies" were public humiliation, publicly humiliated, accused, beaten and tortured by ...
s
and in other methods of
social control and influence involving
self-criticism
Self-criticism involves how an individual evaluates oneself. Self-criticism in psychology is typically studied and discussed as a negative personality trait in which a person has a disrupted self-identity. The opposite of self-criticism would be ...
.
[
]
See also
*
Atonement in Judaism
Atonement in Judaism is the process of causing a transgression to be forgiven or pardoned.
In Rabbinic Judaism
In Rabbinic Judaism, atonement is achieved through repentance, which can be followed by some combination of the following:
* con ...
*
Repentance
Repentance is reviewing one's actions and feeling contrition or regret for past wrongs, which is accompanied by commitment to and actual actions that show and prove a change for the better.
In modern times, it is generally seen as involving a co ...
References
External links
{{Authority control
Communication
Secrecy