# "Forcing" someone to apologise. What's the point?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forcing-someone-to-apologise-whats-the-point/483552>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [January 29, 2009, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forcing-someone-to-apologise-whats-the-point/483552 "2009-01-29T14:48:50Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Ahu\_Ha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dc4da7/32.png) [@Ahu\_Ha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ahu_Ha)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forcing-someone-to-apologise-whats-the-point/483552/21 "2009-01-30T17:51:21Z")

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Thanks to everyone for their contributions.

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**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/forcing-someone-to-apologise-whats-the-point/483552/22 "2009-01-30T18:01:21Z")

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I was headbutted in a bar and the guy got sent to jail. A few weeks later I got an apology letter from him in a state department envelope. I’m sure there was some kind of ‘lighter sentence’ deal for writing it, but I still appreciated it.

A forced written contrition may be meaningless to the offender, but for me I’m sure the guy _felt_ sorry sitting in jail.

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