...Natural Effects on a Boy Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions has the entire life of its author’s experiences, virtues, and detailed imperfections. Rousseau’s Confessions is one of the first notable autobiographies and has influenced many forms of narratives. It inaugurated modern day autobiography and inspired a narrative technic used in many great novels. Rousseau wrote this autobiography in order to tell the world about himself and express the nature of man. He did not want to be known by how people thought of him, but rather be able to tell people exactly what happened in his life and let them be the judge. Rousseau begins Confessions by stating, “this is the only portrait of a man, painted exactly according to nature and in all of its truth, that exists and will probably ever exist” (57). He included embarrassing experiences and personal thoughts from throughout his life to show every possible virtue of his life. He portrays what every boy encounters from mischievous trickery to entering sexual adulthood. The events that change his life and himself become a consistent theme while he describes his childhood, sexual cravings, and natural thoughts of a boy’s life. One of the most common subjects in Rousseau autobiography is the story of his childhood and the nature of a boy. Rousseau’s mother passed away during his birth, which strained the relation between him and his father. When they tried to speak of her the conversation would end with tears because his father saw Rousseau’s...
Words: 1263 - Pages: 6
...“Eight men charged. Five confessions. But only one DNA match. Why would four innocent men confess to a brutal crime they didn't commit?”1 According to the video and the interviews from the video you have to understand how police interrogation works. The police are trained to interrogate suspects using mental, emotional, and pressured methods that have to rely on persuasion and pressure alone. Prior to an interrogation, the police have made up their mind that the person who they are interrogating is guilty. You don't interrogate somebody unless you first believe they're guilty. The goal is to get the person to confess. Most people who have never been arrested for a crime have no experience with interrogation. Everyone has that point where they just break down. The Norfolk four didn’t know what it's like to be in that situation. In the video, Ford, the interrogator was accusing them, telling them that they’re lying, yelling at them; and telling them they have your DNA. The men thought they could depend on the system, but, they didn’t know that police can pretend to have evidence they don't have. This process can go on from two hours to 11 hours. In “The Confessions” The Norfolk Four were high pressured and were threatened about getting the death penalty, going to prison for life, and threats about what will happen if you don't cooperate with the interrogators. This case is just a miniature version of almost everything that happens for the wrong reason when innocent people get...
Words: 452 - Pages: 2
...did not do. Many individuals tend to make false confessions because they feel pressured into doing so. This pressure sometimes comes from themselves, the police officers, and how susceptible the individuals are to suggestibility. The interrogation process, age, and other vulnerabilities among adolescents is what makes individuals confess to something they did not do. This has been evident in many cases in the United States, and other studies that have tired to prove this...
Words: 1800 - Pages: 8
...Areiann Johnson Final Paper April 16, 2012 False Confessions She was killed Mr. Cope. She was raped and murdered! You are in shock. You are confused. You feel indescribable, unbearable pain. This pain is so emotional that it affects you physically too! Someone has ripped your heart out of your chest and made you watch as they relentlessly take a knife to it. All hope is lost. You will surely die from this ordeal. At least you wish you could! Your heart is weak; it drops into your stomach making you nauseated. How will you ever heal? You have been broken. Now every thought that runs through your mind is consumed with your desire for revenge. You want nothing more than to catch the person that has taken someone so precious from you; to make them suffer as you have. Police ask you to come in for questioning. You want to help them do their job and find the perpetrator. You have no idea that the real reason they asked you to come in is because you are their main suspect. They believe you did it. They think that you have taken your own daughters life and have sexually abused her, your little princess…impossible! Billy Wayne Cope is a religious man and has spent numerous hours in church activities with his twelve year old daughter Amanda. On November 29, 2001 Amanda was found on her bed raped and strangled to death. Billy Wayne Cope became police detectives’ main suspect. He initially thought he was helping catch the person that has done this horrific thing...
Words: 3745 - Pages: 15
...was impossible for any sane person to confess to something they did not do and even go to jail for it. There are many reasons an innocent person may make a false confession; for the sake of this discussion I chose confession through coerced internalization. Experts explain that these types of confessions occur when individuals truly believe they are guilty despite the evidence to the contrary. (Chapman 2013) The psychological research has found that some of these false confession happen during interrogation when the interrogator believes the suspect is guilty and they employ whatever means possible to get that confession. So not only will the suspect confess they will form false memories of the crime. (Chapman 2013)The regular american not studying Forensic psychology or criminal justice may assume that an innocent person would only confess if they were beaten or tortured; however there is evidence in our criminal justice system that techniques far less coercive than torture have produced verifiably false confessions in a surprising number of cases. (Contanzo, Krauss 2013) Through the readings for this discussion I have discovered, and while I do not believe it would be fair to say that all investigators use coercion to get confessions, many police interrogation techniques used are designed to elicit a confession and overcome any denial even if the person is innocent. The police interrogation is a psychological process where the police uses three components isolation- to induce...
Words: 462 - Pages: 2
...Innocence is surpassed by confessions. Many are times when the confessions are false. False confessions are made to incriminate a suspect of a crime and have them convicted of the crime that they did not commit. False confessions are made when the mode of interrogation is aimed to put the suspect under pressure, where the police subject the suspect to long hours of interrogation with no rest, interrogation in the absence of an attorney, race difference in the interrogation room and perception of torture during interrogation. This was the case in the interrogation of Amanda Knox. The aim of this paper is to determine why innocence is surpassed by confessions. False confessions have been used to convict innocent victims over the years all over...
Words: 553 - Pages: 3
...Alexandro Ramirez English 1302 Professor Robin Russell 4/12/13 Critical Essay #1 “First Confession” At the beginning of the story, O’Connor, in the short story, “First Confession”, may use the all-knowing or omniscient point of view. He describes to choose any act of the character and any thought of the character, and he tells the goodness and the bad side of the character. Instead the story is written in first person point of view. The narrator in this story is also the main character, or protagonist. This way the reader is allow to the see the world in the eyes of Jackie, and his point of view about his grandmother, Nora, and Mrs. Ryan, and women itself. Jackie does not stand her grandmother at all, he relates her as the source of his entire problems, “and all because of that old woman!” Even thou his grandmother lives with him, because of the dead of his grandfather, he was actually afraid of her, he had to make excuses to his friend so he won’t go inside his house to play because, “because I could never be sure what she would be up to.” He also is disgusted by the woman’s love of porter beer, her inclination to eat potatoes with her hands, “she had a jug of porter and a pot of potatoes with-some-times-a bit of salt fish, and she poured out the potatoes on the table and ate them slowly, with great relish, using her fingers by way of a fork,” and of course favoring Nora, “she knew Mother saw through her, so she sided with Gran.” Nora his old sister was a pain to...
Words: 863 - Pages: 4
...A confession is a formal statement admitting that one is guilty of a crime. Confessions are also made in order to stray from guilt and to make things right. Just like how John Proctor, A middle aged farmer In The Crucible by playwright Arthur Miller, confesses his sins in order to bring justice and make peace. In the play, John Proctor is connected with Abigail Williams, a teenage girl who is sought out to win Proctor for herself after committing lechery with him. His involvement with her leads him to have to make confessions which will influence him in many ways. Throughout the play John Proctor confesses to Elizabeth, his wife, about committing adultery, to the court for committing lechery and, to Danforth about his involvement in witchcraft...
Words: 778 - Pages: 4
...“Literary Analysis of First Confession by: Frank O’Connor” Frank O’ Connor’s “First Confession” is a fastidious short story about fear of eternal punishment for childhood sins. This is a story of a misunderstood young boy who feels disdain and disgust towards his grandmother’s looks and old ways. He also feels anger toward his relatives because they sided with his grandmother. He blames his grandmother for his childhood sins. From trying to lash his sister with a bread knife, not eating the food prepared by her grandmother, kicking his grandmother on the shin, to the extent of planning to kill his grandmother. These childhood sins have to be confessed to a priest because of Jackie’s fear of damnation and eternal punishment. His sister accompanies him to the church on his first confession. After the confession, the priest gave Jackie a very light and absurd punishment of three Hail Mary’s and to suck a bullseyes, which his sister finds ironic. An analysis of “First Confession” reveals a boy’s first confession as a fundamental experience of becoming a better individual. Frank O’Connor is careful with his words as to not fear the character but empathize with him. The story “First Confession” is written in first person point of view which assists in O’Connor’s depiction of the characters confession. "I decided that, between one thing and another, I must have broken the whole ten commandments, all on account of that old woman, and so far as I could see, so long as she remained in...
Words: 700 - Pages: 3
...sense. Naturally, it is difficult to understand why anyone would confess to a crime they didn’t commit. However, false confessions are one the leading causes of wrongful convictions.1 As the Supreme Court of Canada noted in R v. Oickle, innocent people are induced to make false confessions more frequently than those unacquainted with the phenomenon might expect.2 In North America, we can trace the existence of false confessions back to the Salem Witch Trials, where a number of women were persecuted for witchcraft on the basis of confessions that were obtained through torture and threats.3 More recent false confessions have been obtained under psychological duress and not with torture or threats of physical harm.4 Nevertheless, with the developments in law and policies in place to control interrogation methods, false confessions continue to persist.5 This begs the question, are interrogation methods solely responsible for false confessions, or does some of the responsibility fall on the confessor? Scholars and social scientists agree, that it is not solely harsh interrogation tactics that lead to false confessions but it is the combination of these tactics with psychological factors such as, intelligence and personality, which contribute to the likelihood of a suspect providing a false confession.6 While there are currently solutions for avoiding false confessions, they do not adequately address the needs of the most vulnerable individuals who are often induced into falsely confessing...
Words: 7249 - Pages: 29
...various circumstances, and there are several factors that are likely to increase the risk of a false confession. One contributing factor to increased risk of a false...
Words: 1886 - Pages: 8
...Brenton Butler’s false confession during the interrogation process was the main cause of his wrongful prosecution. In a study conducted by Redlich and Goodman, researchers tried to investigate some of the potential factors that can influence the admission of a crime not committed. In the research, they included age and suggestibility as the characteristics of the false confessor and the presentation of false evidence as the characteristics of the interrogation process. Three age groups were included in the study to analyze whether adolescents are more likely than young adults to falsely confess. The incorporated groups were 12 and 13-year-olds, 15 and 16-year-olds, and college students within the range of 18-26 years. Participants were 48 females...
Words: 320 - Pages: 2
...The book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” was written by John Perkins. The book details the account of Perkins’ career with the consulting firm named “Chas. T. Main” which was situated in Boston City. Perkins had started with the book in the 1980’s but somehow threats and bribes were forcing Perkins to not proceed further. His job was to somehow disguise the political and the financial leadership of the underdeveloped countries to make them accept debts/loans from the big development institutions like the World Bank. As a result, slowly they were left burdened under huge debts which were almost impossible for them to pay and as a result they came under the political pressure of the United States. This scheme of actions was used by the...
Words: 1024 - Pages: 5
...Name: Course: Tutor: Date: Influence of “The Aeneid” and “Confessions” in Dante's Poem Dante in his poem “"The Inferno" talks of his journey to hell and back. He narrates it in the form of an autobiography. The poem does, however, indicate a strong influence from Maro's "The Aeneid" and Augustine's the "Confessions." The influence from the two in the “Inferno” range from the themes, concepts, literature devices and the language styles used. Maro Virgil, the author of the poem “The Aeneid” was a controversial figure in most Christian texts at the time. His influence in the “Inferno” is clear because Dante uses the name for the leader in the poem. Virgil is an influence in the poem rather than just a fiction figure or character. Dante does not borrow directly from the Aeneid, but expresses his own ideas in different twist. A major difference in the texts is that while Dante uses the underworld to denote hell, Virgil extends the physical world, as we know it. Dante feels that the pagan Virgil is contradicting in his ways, and Dante’s hell is an extension of Virgil’s underworld. Virgil influenced the way Dante denotes hell in specific circles or steps. While Virgil had only three; Tartarus, Elysium and Lugentes Campi, Dante had nine; Limbo, Gluttony, Lust, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery. Apparently, it is also clear that the concept of underworld is yet another influence Dante received from Maro’s “The Aeneid” (Maro 930-939). Throughout the “Inferno”...
Words: 594 - Pages: 3
...evidence be disclosed in an interview with a suspect? An experiment with mock-suspects” (2009) by Steven Sellars and Mark R. Kebbell, is a review of different experiments done by others regarding the strength of evidence and timing of disclosure of the evidence to suspects of crimes. This paper is important because it provides useful knowledge for police to have when interviewing suspects and trying to get confessions. According to different researchers referenced in this article the consensus is that if you have strong evidence against suspects it leads to a higher rate of confession. However there seems to be more controversy in the studies of when the evidence should be disclosed to suspects. Some say it should be very early on in the interview. Others say it can be dangerous to disclose evidence early if your goal is a confession because the suspect will become defensive and go into denial mode and stay there. The initial moments of the interview shapes the relationship between the interviewer and suspect and might be better used to develop trust, which could lead to later confession. Another reason against early disclosure is if the police present their story first the suspect can shape their story in order to protect themselves. The authors who do favour early evidence disclosure still believe it...
Words: 1136 - Pages: 5
