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Ciel Morgan
November 17th, 2015
Professor Dziadek
ENGL 1302-204
Torture as an Interrogation Method
Imagine you are in prison… What do you think would be the
worst possible way you could be interrogated? I’m sure your
answer was “torture”. Using torture as an interrogation method
is increasing across America and it has to be stopped. The
negative effects are life lasting if the criminals do survive
the torture. Many criminals who undergo this awful method end up
confessing false information or simply not confessing at all. We
may have laws that prohibit torture but this doesn’t stop
America from using it in interrogation. Even though people
believe that torture is the best option for interrogating
criminals, this method is unethical, inhumane, and goes against
common decency.
Torture as an interrogation method is not something that
just started becoming popular. Some of the methods that are
still around today actually started in the 1950’s. The methods
that date way back to this time are water boarding and sleep
deprivation. While these are still used in present times, the
interrogators have expanded their methods to make them far more
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terrifying and painful. They have expanded so much that they can
now categorize torture into two different types.
There are two types of torture that can be used in
interrogation. The author Nowak defines torture in one of his
articles by saying, “Section 2340 defines the act of torture as
an “act committed by a person acting under the color of law
specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain
or suffering” (Nowak 811). The type of torture that will cause
victims severe mental pain and suffering is called psychological
torture. This type of torture doesn’t necessarily mess with the
body, but it messes with the mind instead. A few examples of
this are sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation. The
combination of both really seems to put these victims over the
edge.
While non-physical (psychological) methods are often used,
the physical methods seem to be used more. The range of physical
torturous methods is very vast. These physical methods are the
methods that can inflict the most pain to victims. Just a few
examples of these are walling, water dousing, water boarding,
slaps all over the body, cramped confinement, and stress
positions. On a recent article produced by CNN, the reporter
Elizabeth Landau writes about a severe case of physical torture
which she describes the cruel details of a criminal’s torture
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as, “he was forced to lay down in urine and feces, stay naked in
his cell for days, and "howl like dogs do" while being pulled by
a dog leash” (Landau). This criminal wasn’t event treated like a
normal human being. He was treated like a dog, worth way less
than he actually is.
If you torture someone so much that will usually only lead
to the dispense of false information. Many studies show that the
victims of this torture will say absolutely anything just to
make the torture stop. The inflictors (policeman or
interrogators) of course want only true information to get to
the bottom of the case and they are not even getting the most
accurate information. In the end this shows us that torture
cannot be trusted. After it is all said and done, the
interrogators end up with basically nothing because false
information can’t help with any cases.
You have to be thinking “how can the government get away
with such terrifying torturous techniques?”, trust me there are
many ways. We do have laws in America that prohibit torture, but
they are not clearly defined. The true definition of torture
isn’t even clearly defined yet. This is exactly how
interrogators get around the laws. If the government is in on
the torture then clearly they cannot get in any trouble for it.
I came across an article written about how the CIA takes part in
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torture, the author explains how people are usually shocked to
find out that the CIA takes part in such awful interrogation
methods, like when he says “Senate Democrats' “torture report”
revealed striking new details of the extent of interrogation
techniques used by the CIA” (Dinan 1). In the future America has
to come up with clearer laws and more defined methods of torture
that are prohibited. We would have to list all of the possible
ways of torture as an interrogation and prohibit all of them.
The true definition of torture would come soon after that. CNN
has already reported that American was coming up with “softer
techniques” to interrogate to counteract the torture. Hopefully
we move to only using soft techniques and torture disappears as
a whole.
As you can see from the information above, there are no
real benefits from using torture as an interrogation method. You
end up with criminals who have more psychological problems than
before, scarring for the rest of their life, and no accurate
information. You can’t say that this is helping America at all.
Once we can interrogate without any torture we will have much
better information and probably more accurate cases. This will
only lead us to an improved nation.
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Works Cited
Guiora, Amos N., and Erin M. Page. "Case Western Reserve Journal
of International Law." Journal of International Law 37.2/3
(2006): 427-47. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 05
Oct. 2015.
Kalbeitzer, Rachel. "Psychologists and Interrogations: Ethical
Dilemmas in Times of War." Ethics & Behavior. 192 (2009):
156168. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 15 Oct.
2015.
Landau, Elizabeth. "Torture's Psychological Impact 'often Worse'
than Physical." Cnn.com. CNN, 22 May 2009. Web. 15 Oct.
2015.
Nordgren, Loran F., Mary-Hunter Morris McDonnell, and George
Loewenstien. "What Constitutes Torture?: Psychological
Impediments to an Objective Evaluation of Enhanced
Interrogation Tactics." Psychological Science (Sage
Publications Inc.) 22.5 (2011): 689-84. Academic Search
Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.
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Nowak, Manfred. "What Practices Constitute Torture?: US and UN
Standards." Human Rights Quarterly 28.4 (2006): 809-41.
JSTOR [JSTOR]. Web. 07 Oct. 2015.
O'Donohue, William, "The Ethics Of Enhanced Interrogations And
Torture: A Reappraisal Of The Argument." Ethics & Behavior
24.2 (2014): 109-125. Academic Search Complete. Web. 21
Oct. 2015.