What is False confession?
[[File:Police interrogation room.jpg|thumb|In Switzerland, interrogation rooms look like this one.]] In [[law]], a confession is when somebody admits that he or she has committed a crime or a felony, which is punishable. In a false confession, the person admits he or she has committed a crime or a felony, but this is not true. False confessions occur regularly. In general, there are three reasons, why they occur: # Certain people want to give a false confession. They do this for different reasons. In most cases, they want to protect someone who is close to them. There are also some [[Mental illness|mental conditions]] that can cause false confessions, for example [[Histrionic personality disorder]]. Many legal systems have rules, that people do not need to testify, if this [[testimony]] could harm close relatives. This type of false confession is called '''voluntary false confession'''. # Sometimes people are forced ot give a false confession. This is usually done by special interrogation methods, or even [[torture]]. In such situations, people usually confess to reduce stress, or because they get a [[reward]]. Officially such confessions are called '''coerced-compliant confessions''' # There are certain interrogation techniques that can make people believe that they guilty, even though they are innocent. In legal terminology, this is called '''coerced-internalized confessions''' {{Stub}} [[Category:Criminal justice]]