三个术语确实均与被告招认违法或犯罪事实有关。

confession多限于刑事犯罪领域（在加拿大民事诉讼程序中，其可等同于formal admission)，指刑事被告完全承认其被指控的犯罪及有关定罪所需的所有事实，或至少是主要事实，并承认有罪（acknowledgement of guilt) , 有供认不讳的含义，陪审团根据其招供则可作出有罪裁定，故为“供认”。如：

Such testimony must not be treated as incriminating evidence, but solely as evidence of information and facts witnessed by those officers, such as the fact that the confession took place and the circumstances in which the statement was made.

这类证词不得作为定罪证据，只能证明那些警察见证的信息和事实，例如供认确有发生，以及供词是在什么情况下作出的。

相比之下，admission常用作指对民事责任行为的承认。在刑事领域，admission多指对无犯罪故意的刑事责任行为的招认，多表示承认一个或数个事实， 此种招供远没有达到足以定罪的程度；与confession相比，admission 主要的区别在于被告无认罪表示(An admission is a confession that an allegation or factual assertion is true without any acknowledgement of guilt with respect to the criminal charges，whereas a confession involves an acknowledgement of guilt as well as of the true of predicate factual allegations，故 admission 应译为“供述”而不能是“供认”，因其没有“认”，即认罪的含义。如：

If such a defence is rejected and the accused is convicted we are of the view that if the effect of the admission has been to limit the issues at trial, resulting in a saving of court time, then this should still be regarded as a mitigating factor and be reflected in the length of sentence accordingly.

如果法官不接受此抗辩而把被控人定罪，我们认为假若被控人所作出的供述有缩窄审讯时 的争议点的作用，节省了法庭的时间，这一点便仍应视为一项考虑轻判的因素，并据此而反 映在刑期的长短之上 。

在刑事诉讼中，statement主要是指警方在侦破犯罪过程中对某人， 尤指疑犯的招供所作的记录和报告[an account of a person's (usually a suspect's) acknowledgement of a crime，taken by the police pursuant to their investigation of the offense，故应译为“供述记录”。如：

 As used in this section, the term 'confession' means any confession of guilt of any criminal offence or any selfincriminating statement made or given orally or in writing.

‘供认’一词，用于本条时，意指对任何刑事罪行的供认有罪，或指以口头或书陎作出或提供的自我入罪供述记录。