On Tuesday, 2 July 2019 21:51:00 UTC-4, Willie wrote:
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> I knew you would come through on this. What I'm wrestling with is what *the rationale* is for requiring the prisoner to admit guilt (and in the series, I think they shoved a paper and pen over to Korey Wise for him to sign). I don't see that rationale in the articles themselves, but one of the commentators wrote:
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> "Inmates should ordinarily be expected to admit guilt before being granted parole because understanding that you've done something wrong is the first, and an essential, step toward rehabilitation. That premise is undermined if the prospective parolee continues to maintain that the only error lay within the system, not within himself. Such thinking is the breeding ground of resentment and self-justification, which in turn are the breeding grounds for disregard of the law."
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> I don't buy that. I don't see how maintaining your claim of innocence (even if you are guilty) affects how rehabilitated you are (setting aside the argument that some prisoners *are* innocent). I suppose the argument would go that if you don't admit guilt, you will come out full of rage at the injustice, and would therefore pose a threat.
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> Instead, you come out having signed off on your guilt, but trying to get a job and rejoin society. Is that paper available to prospective employers? Schools?
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> I don't get it. Who came up with such an idea? Have psychologists weighed in on this?
The idea that "Confession is good for the soul" originates from the 19th century and over the years probably has been said by many parents to their children. Ridding oneself of guilt has always been regarded as a vital element in living a healthy, productive life.
Proverbs 28:13 English Standard Version (ESV)
13 Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
To this day, Jews celebrate Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) which mandates confession of all sins committed within the past year, seeking God's forgiveness by repentance, prayer, and charitable acts. Fasting on Yom Kippur remains one of the most widely observed of Jewish religious obligations.
The Roman Catholic church employs confession of sins as one of its major rituals and it's practiced as a way of cleansing souls and claims to make people mentally and spiritually healthier. And of course one of the most famous works of early Catholic literature was "St. Augustine's Confessions," which extolled the healing power of confession and repentance.
Psychoanalysis was another area in which revealing buried, repressed, or hidden truths about oneself were purported to make one happier and more whole. Carl Jung in particular saw psychology and religion as converging in their concern for helping people overcome their guilt by means of confession.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00946349
The Chinese Communists developed "struggle sessions" from the self-criticism sessions used by the Soviet Communist Party in the 1920s. In the 1950s and 1960s in China, people were "forced to admit various crimes before a crowd of people who would verbally and physically abuse the victim until he or she confessed. Struggle sessions were often held at the workplace of the accused, but they were sometimes conducted in sports stadiums where large crowds would gather if the target was well-known."
In the American judicial system, the original goals of imprisonment were deterrence of future crime and retribution against and incapacitation of prisoners. The movement to replace these goals with rehabilitation of the imprisoned began around the 1870s, with the hope that less incarceration (which was even back then an expensive proposition) could become the new norm. In 1876, the New York State Prison at Elmira became the pioneer institution in this effort, positing that rehabilitation could never work without the prisoner's cooperation and that a necessary first step towards achieving such cooperation was the prisoner accepting responsibility for past iniquities and making full and free confession of past misdeeds. There were certainly other ways to demonstrate one's rehabilitation, but the general view at the time was that acceptance of responsibility was a necessary first step. In some ways, that was a precursor of the First Step in Alcoholics Anonymous' 12-step program: acknowledging to oneself and to others that "I'm an alcoholic."
And given the centrality of acknowledging guilt in the entire judicial process (95% of criminal cases don't even go to trial, thanks to plea bargaining, which rewards confessions by reducing or even eliminating prison sentences), it shouldn't surprise us that acknowledging one's guilt continues to play an important role in the parole process, which is essentially, after all, an off-shoot of the initial sentencing process).
You may find of some interest this analysis of the subject of confession from an emeritus professor at your old alma mater:
https://web.williams.edu/Psychology/Faculty/Kassin/IESBS.confess.pdf