SubJeff on 10/10/2012 at 16:27
So there is this guy in Wales atm who has been charged with the murder of a 5 year old girl.
(
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-19892608)
The police can't find her and I got in a minor discussion on another forum about the use of torture to extract the info from this guy. It's not the sort of place where you get a decent response though so I thought I'd bring it over here where I know we'll likely get a decent investigation.
My question is; is the use of torture ever justified?
Edit: Imho, sometimes it is.
Vivian on 10/10/2012 at 16:33
I not only don't think it's ever justified, I also don't think it's a particularly effective interrogation method. There is too much motivation for the victim to just say whatever they think will make it stop, their recall will be interfered with by the extreme stress of the situation even if they do want to say whatever it is you want them to say, etc. Basically, there isn't a particularly good logical paradigm behind statements under duress being any more or less reliable than statements given under normal circumstances.
DDL on 10/10/2012 at 16:44
Personally I'd like to see what evidence they actually have to support their charges, since at the moment it appears to be..."he owns a car that is sort of similar to the one someone said the girl got into. Possibly."
I mean, hell, I'd be dead set against torture even if they had overwhelming evidence he was guilty, just because
fuck torture, but if we don't even know he's guilty (and let's be honest, the police don't always get it (
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12092600) right), then I think it's a bit early to condemn him, let alone propose torture.
nickie on 10/10/2012 at 16:55
Gut reaction - never. Or you're stooping to the same level. But there's always a but, I think. For the prevention of hundreds of deaths maybe? But as Vivian says, can you guarantee you're going to get the right answer. And with plenty of evidence that people do/did confess to crimes they haven't committed after hours of straightforward questioning, it's much more likely that people will say anything.
In this case, we're not that far from Aber and it has affected many people. But without derailing your thread, again, there are also an awful lot of people wondering why a 5 year old was not having a bath and a bedtime story at that time of night. Was it suggested that this man should be tortured to reveal where he has supposedly hidden her body? He's not even been tried yet and I did think we had innocent till proven guilty in this country.
SubJeff on 10/10/2012 at 17:14
I'm not talking about this case and the use of torture was mentioned on another forum, never by anyone else.
It's the guy reaction, the "just because fuck torture" that I want to get away from. I'm more interested in a pragmatic/utilitarian view of it's use.
Vivian - you say that it's not useful because people just say what you want to hear and my question is - so what? This will be true some of the time, but not all of the time and I think the times you'd turn to torture it wouldn't matter; if they lied to you you'd be no worse off than when you started.
Examples (just 2 for brevities sake):
1. A person has killed one person by suffocation in a buried coffin. He has buried other people in coffins, you don't know the locations, and time/oxygen is running out. The perp won't tell you where they are but if you torture him he may. If he lies you're in the same situation as you are now, if he tells the truth lives will be saved.
2. An enemy soldier has been captured. He was part of a reconnaissance squad and therefore has information about the main attack force. He will not tell you any details at all. Torture may reveal information about the enemy. Of course it may be lies but if it corroborates other intel you have it may be useful.
In both cases you may end up with nothing even after the torture, but you may also end up with valuable information.
Is your gut reaction, your inherent dislike of the idea of torture enough for you to leave these sources of information untapped? In my opinion torture in case 1 is justified but of course there may be other mitigating pieces of information that you might like to discuss. As it stands though I say yes for 1, no for 2 because if you apply pure logic you will or won't get the info in case 1, but in case 2 you may get bad, little info and I think that one of the "tests" for torture is an information logic gate - yes/no to info if you will.
NB: This is a discussion. No flame wars please, no name calling, no bitching. If you disagree with an opinion say so without being a jerk.
DDL on 10/10/2012 at 17:30
The problem with that sort of approach is that (even if we take the moral issue out of the equation and consider it in cold terms), as soon as you propose that toture is acceptable under some circumstances, you open the whole thing to a sliding-scale floodgate.
If it's never acceptable, it's never acceptable.
If it's acceptable for...kiddy rapists, then maybe it's also acceptable (in extreme circumstances) for kidnappers. And a little later, for thieves. And a little later, for shoplifters. You open yourself to a world where someone, somewhere, might A-OK the torturing of someone to get their facebook password so they can check who's on their 'friends' list.
Would you be ok with living in a world where the police might torture YOU to find out something you don't want them to know?
Pyrian on 10/10/2012 at 18:30
Torture. It's well-known to work less well than continuing to apply standard interrogation techniques, has a wide array of significant drawbacks, including permanent psychological damage to both the recipient and the perpetrator. The various ticking-bomb scenarios are things that happen in movies and TV shows, and not in real life.
It's worse than pointless.
Lazarus411 on 10/10/2012 at 18:42
There's a torture method used in medieval times where you were locked in a small box so that you would be constricted into a hunched position without enough room to even straighten your back and left in there all night. Can you imagine how horrible that would be?
Ulukai on 10/10/2012 at 18:51
Sounds a bit like the housing situation in London
Lazarus411 on 10/10/2012 at 18:54
I thought Tokyo was worse. They pay for apartments that are literally just a sleep chamber.
