Talk:Confession
 | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
Problem with lead
[edit]It says "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." If someone would prefer to keep a fact hidden, then why would they reveal it, unless they're forced to do so? But if they're forced to do so, then how could a confession ever be voluntarily given? Threeomp (talk) 18:19, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
- There is already an article on Confession (law), which is strictly about the legal aspects of the term, and is already mentioned in this article. This is about the broad, general concept, which includes things like confessions of love, confessions of jealousy, confessions of admiration. It doesn't matter what the compulsion is to reveal the hidden information. It may merely be overcoming one's own embarrassment about it. See WP:BROADCONCEPT. bd2412 T 19:08, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
- It's almost like, in the case of confessions of love and so on, it's the other way around; the person would prefer to reveal the information (because who knows, the love might be requited), but there's something (e.g. risk of embarrassment) that has, up till that point, compelled him not to reveal it. In the case of criminal confessions, the accused would often prefer NOT to reveal the information, but he gets misled by an interrogator into thinking it'll be in his best interests to reveal it. This basically is a form of compulsion, but by legal fiction, the courts regard it as voluntary as long as the interrogator's conduct stays within certain parameters (e.g. the interrogator only implies, rather than explicitly stating, that the accused will get treated more leniently if he confesses). Given how vital confessions often are to successfully prosecuting cases, probably it would be appropriate to have a brief section on legal confessions and use Template:Main to link to the main article. Threeomp (talk) 19:30, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
- A person may well confess to a crime or a civil wrongdoing merely because they feel bad about, and confessing alleviates this feeling. It may have nothing to do with any tactic by the interrogator at all. bd2412 T 19:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
- Going off topic a bit, I would say that they probably usually don't realize that, given the way our legal system works, they'll be hated, feared, and discriminated against for life once they confess to a crime. They probably think that they'll be given a pat on the back for being honest (or at least eventually be fully forgiven) when actually, if they hadn't confessed, they'd have retained the full rights and respect that any other first-class citizen has; and all they'll attract by confessing is the label of "criminal" and the usually permanent contempt and anger from society that goes along with it. (Even in cases where people get their case dismissed after pleading guilty and serving probation, those convictions can still show up in future civil and criminal legal proceedings, unless perhaps it's actually expunged.)
- A person may well confess to a crime or a civil wrongdoing merely because they feel bad about, and confessing alleviates this feeling. It may have nothing to do with any tactic by the interrogator at all. bd2412 T 19:45, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
- It's almost like, in the case of confessions of love and so on, it's the other way around; the person would prefer to reveal the information (because who knows, the love might be requited), but there's something (e.g. risk of embarrassment) that has, up till that point, compelled him not to reveal it. In the case of criminal confessions, the accused would often prefer NOT to reveal the information, but he gets misled by an interrogator into thinking it'll be in his best interests to reveal it. This basically is a form of compulsion, but by legal fiction, the courts regard it as voluntary as long as the interrogator's conduct stays within certain parameters (e.g. the interrogator only implies, rather than explicitly stating, that the accused will get treated more leniently if he confesses). Given how vital confessions often are to successfully prosecuting cases, probably it would be appropriate to have a brief section on legal confessions and use Template:Main to link to the main article. Threeomp (talk) 19:30, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
- The interrogator might not always use those tactics on them, but I think that if suspects had full knowledge of all the consequences of confessing (including how innocent third parties, such as the suspect's family, and anyone else the suspect could've helped by retaining the freedoms given to non-criminals, would be affected), we'd see a lot fewer confessions. They would weigh the impact on those third parties and decide that the greater good would be served by keeping quiet. Threeomp (talk) 20:04, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
Love
[edit]I would almost say that confession of love should be split off into its own article because it has a totally different meaning. Threeomp (talk) 18:47, 14 August 2015 (UTC)