Obligation or Right? A Historical Comparison of the Criminal Confession System between China and the USA

Abstract

Confessions, as a type of criminal evidence, have played an important role in improving the detection and conviction of crimes. In 2012, Chinese lawmakers revised China's Criminal Procedure Law and added the defendant's privilege against self-incrimination. This reform with Western-inspired features has led to a heated controversy over the appropriate criminal confession system in China. The traditional Chinese system focuses on the obligation to confess and reward for confession, while the newly imported confession system from the United States focuses on the right to remain silent. To determine the appropriate policy, a thorough comparative analysis of the two confession systems from a historical and cultural perspective seems to be crucial. Specifically, comparative analysis and historical reviewing methods have been utilized in this study to explore the differences in the criminal confession systems between Chinese and the US contexts and thus to propose the future direction for improving the Chinese confession system. By tracing the origin of these two confession systems, this article examines the underlying criminal justice cultures that contribute to the diverse confession systems in detail. Given the changeable cultural influence along the historical river, this article then reviews the evolutional path of the "leniency to those who confess" in China and the "right to silence" in the United States, providing the specific provisions and implementation of two confession systems in various eras. Based on such complete knowledge of the specific cultural traditions and the resulting confession systems with which social and political contexts are involved, this study finally concludes the implications for developing the Chinese criminal confession system, especially from a localized perspective.