Do you agree with torture as a means of extracting information?

m@cc@

http://www.news.com.au/national/woman-and-four-year-old-daughter-abducted-near-sydney-train-station/story-e6frfkvr-1225861830034?from=igoogle+gadget+compact+news_rss

A MAN who allegedly bashed and kidnapped a woman and her daughter is refusing to tell police where they are, Nine News reports.
The 31-year-old woman and her four-year-old daughter were allegedly kidnapped by the woman's former de facto husband near a train station in Sydney at about 6.30pm (AEST) yesterday, police said.
The 26-year-old man is accused of assaulting the woman before dragging the pair into his car near Rockdale train station.
Nine News reports that the man, who was arrested and charged with breaching an AVO and two counts of assault at 12.45am, will not tell police where they woman and girl are.

Police hold serious concerns for the pair's safety.
The man is due to appear before Kogarah Local Court today.

Have to say, 'torture' was the first thing that came into my head when I read this story. Probably a reflex response but what do you folks think?

pablomakaveli

In this particular case i think it would be justified.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

In before jack Bauer

Local-womanizer

See,the problem is that the man is alleged to have done this. It woulent go down well if the police batterd him about the place and it turned out the women and child walk in the door later,would it?

0verblood

Fcukin roasht the bollocks off him with a blowtorch.

starbelgrade

If it were my wife & daughter, I would torture the f*ck out of anyone to get the information, but we have laws for a reason & allowing police to torture anyone is not justifiable under any circumstance - even if they do it outside of their jurastiction (Guantanamo Style).

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Allegedly.

Key word here.

There's a lot of people in gitmo bay that are allegedly connected to terrorism

I wouldn't be against the idea if they were 100% sure about their allegations. Other than that, it's much of a gamble.

Local-womanizer

starbelgrade wrote: »

If it were my wife & daughter, I would torture the f*ck out of anyone to get the information, but we have laws for a reason & allowing police to torture anyone is not justifiable under any circumstance - even if they do it outside of their jurastiction (Guantanamo Style).

But its also proved ineffective aswell. Sure you would tell anybody who was pulling your finger nails off what ever they wanted to hear to get them to stop to be fair!

Einhard

Yup. I know people have qualms about applyting torture to extract information, but in some cases it's not only justified, but moral.

I remember reading something similar to the case above where a German paedophile had kidnapped a little girl, was captured but refused to divulge where he had hidden her. There was a danger that she would die were she not found quickly, and there was quite a debate over he should be tortured or otherwise.

I remember having a debate once with someone who considered torture immoral in every circumstance, even when it was pointed out that the alternative may be to let an innocent person die.

pablomakaveli

Newspapers have to say allegedly until a person is found guilty by the court as they would be open to libel action. It's probably definite that he did do it.

Einhard

Local-womanizer wrote: »

But its also proved ineffective aswell. Sure you would tell anybody who was pulling your finger nails off what ever they wanted to hear to get them to stop to be fair!

Yes but if you did know what they wanted to hear, wouldn't you also tell them?

Sinfonia

m@cc@ wrote: »

http://www.news.com.au/national/woman-and-four-year-old-daughter-abducted-near-sydney-train-station/story-e6frfkvr-1225861830034?from=igoogle+gadget+compact+news_rss

I don't think it's very balanced to ask that question and accompany it with a news story that is bound to provoke biased responses.

Case in point:

pablomakaveli wrote:

In this particular case i think it would be justified.

My answer to the question is no.

Sinfonia

pablomakaveli wrote: »

It's probably definite that he did do it.

Huh?

Des Carter

Local-womanizer wrote: »

But its also proved ineffective aswell. Sure you would tell anybody who was pulling your finger nails off what ever they wanted to hear to get them to stop to be fair!

No I was watching a documentary about the Spanish Inquisition and the one thing that came across is that films or full of **** and if your tortured you will tell them everything you know.

However once you allow torture it can get out of hand and eventually inoccent people will be tortured etc

pablomakaveli

Sinfonia wrote: »

I don't think it's very balanced to ask that question and accompany it with a news story that is bound to provoke biased responses.

Case in point:




My answer to the question is no.

So if the mother and daughter die because he would'nt reveal their location your ok with that as long as he isn't tortured?

Cryos

Local-womanizer wrote: »

See,the problem is that the man is alleged to have done this. It woulent go down well if the police batterd him about the place and it turned out the women and child walk in the door later,would it?

You miss out on the other key word there, "he will not" as in he refuses to tell police".

You could draw two things depending on what the man says:

"Im not telling you where they are" - Implys that he knows where they are
"I dont know" - he implys that he doesnt know.

The article suggests that he knows where they are.

landsleaving

Sinfonia wrote: »

Huh?

Must be an Oasis fan.

pablomakaveli

Sinfonia wrote: »

Huh?

The cops probably have evidence that prove he is guilty beyond doubt but the newspapers can't say that because they could be open to libel action.

Sinfonia

pablomakaveli wrote: »

So if the mother and daughter die because he would'nt reveal their location your ok with that as long as he isn't tortured?

1) We don't know he did it.

2) I'm not 'ok' with the fact that anybody was kidnapped in the first place, and I'm certainly not ok with the mother and daughter dying.

m@cc@

Sinfonia wrote: »

I don't think it's very balanced to ask that question and accompany it with a news story that is bound to provoke biased responses.

Well it's something that crossed my mind in response to the story. Of course there is the 'alleged' part but the story doesn't imply that he doesn't know where they are, rather that he is refusing to tell police.


EDIT: btw, apologies for the lack of a poll.

Sinfonia

pablomakaveli wrote: »

but the newspapers can't say that because they could be open to libel action.

I understood that part, I was pointing out how ridiculous it is to say that he 'probably definitely' did it.

Jax Teller

The article says he refuses to tell police were they are , so he must have did it

pablomakaveli

Sinfonia wrote: »

I understood that part, I was pointing out how ridiculous it is to say that he 'probably definitely' did it.

Ok that was just a grammatical mistake on my part.:o

jill_valentine

Einhard wrote: »

Yes but if you did know what they wanted to hear, wouldn't you also tell them?

The problem is, there is absolutely no way of filtering truth from lies in this scenario.

Say you've got a hundred dudes. One of them knows something, 99 of them haven't a clue. You torture them all, you'll end up with a hundred different answers and you can just pick whichever one you want and embark on an unwinnable war that costs the lives of hundreds of thousands of people while you flute around looking for imaginary weapons of mass destruction.

I'm telling you now, if I was in a position where I thought I was going to be tortured indefinitely, I'd tell you all about how I shot JFK, flew an airplane into the towers and told Jedward to give it a shot, shur, what harm can it do?

Overheal

Is this exactly life or death? Do minutes matter? Are bombs going to go off in a major city on the hour every hour that the pair is not returned to safety?

m@cc@

Overheal wrote: »

Is this exactly life or death? Do minutes matter?

Who is to say? I guess it's the police who know the most about their safety.

Sinfonia

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Ok that was just a grammatical mistake on my part.:o

Fair enough, but beyond that, to even say that he probably did it is a reach, I think.

As far as we know from the article, the man has not stood trial, and the man has not confessed. The police have a suspect in custody, and that's all.
The governing laws are in place to protect the innocent. Occasionally, the guilty will slip through, as a result of the system in place, which is unfortunate.

The article may imply that he knows where they are, but it's just an implication in a news article.

pablomakaveli

Overheal wrote: »

Is this exactly life or death? Do minutes matter? Are bombs going to go off in a major city on the hour every hour that the pair is not returned to safety?

They could be locked in a basement or the trunk of a car with no food or water. So for the mother and daughter it could be about life or death.

old_aussie

Try hypnotherapy, or truth serum

starbelgrade

Local-womanizer wrote: »

But its also proved ineffective aswell. Sure you would tell anybody who was pulling your finger nails off what ever they wanted to hear to get them to stop to be fair!

That was my point.

m@cc@

Sinfonia wrote: »

The governing laws are in place to protect the innocent. Occasionally, the guilty will slip through, as a result of the system in place, which is unfortunate.

I understand that and of course it's important that it's upheld. I'd be more for torture after receiving approval from the judge, the same as a warrant, where there is reasonable reason to believe the suspect is withholding information.

Local-womanizer

Des Carter wrote: »

No I was watching a documentary about the Spanish Inquisition and the one thing that came across is that films or full of **** and if your tortured you will tell them everything you know.

If I was an innocent man being tortured,but the person torturing me thinks I am guilty or think that I have the information they want,do you think they will accept "I dont know" for an answer and cease the torture?!

Reverting to torture would be ridiculous. It achieves nothing,it is immoral and those who partake in it are no better than their victim.

And I wouldent take all my facts from an article in the paper. The simple fact is,and its every persons right,no matter what they have done,is that they are innocent until proven guilty.

starbelgrade

Tickling. Surely that's an acceptable form of torture?

pablomakaveli

Sinfonia wrote: »

Fair enough, but beyond that, to even say that he probably did it is a reach, I think.

As far as we know from the article, the man has not stood trial, and the man has not confessed. The police have a suspect in custody, and that's all.
The governing laws are in place to protect the innocent. Occasionally, the guilty will slip through, as a result of the system in place, which is unfortunate.

The article may imply that he knows where they are, but it's just an implication in a news article.

It may be possible he's innocent but given they were abducted near a train station there were probably witnesses and CCTV footage that could put him at the scene.

Also the fact he won't disclose the location is a strong indication of guilt.

Einhard

jill_valentine wrote: »

The problem is, there is absolutely no way of filtering truth from lies in this scenario.

Say you've got a hundred dudes. One of them knows something, 99 of them haven't a clue. You torture them all, you'll end up with a hundred different answers and you can just pick whichever one you want and embark on an unwinnable war that costs the lives of hundreds of thousands of people while you flute around looking for imaginary weapons of mass destruction.

I'm telling you now, if I was in a position where I thought I was going to be tortured indefinitely, I'd tell you all about how I shot JFK, flew an airplane into the towers and told Jedward to give it a shot, shur, what harm can it do?

That's true. But I'm not talking about torturing every conceivable suspect for every conceivable crime. There would have to be a very pressing reason, an almost unique set of circumstances. Like the one linked to by the OP. If a known Islamic terrorist was caught in the act of perpetrating an outrage for example, then I think that some form of torture could be considered. And by torture, I don't mean "blow torch to his b@lls" or anything like, but something along the line of waterboarding, sensory deprivation etc.

Sinfonia

m@cc@ wrote: »

I understand that and of course it's important that it's upheld. I'd be more for torture after receiving approval from the judge, the same as a warrant, where there is reasonable reason to believe the suspect is withholding information.

But it still might prove completely fruitless, torture won't necessarily extract the truth.
Even a confession from a suspect isn't (or at least shouldn't be) enough to convict somebody.



Just noticed the part in the article about the AVO (which I think is like a restraining order) ... I wonder did the victim know and have a restraining order on the suspect..

starbelgrade

Einhard wrote: »

That's true. But I'm not talking about torturing every conceivable suspect for every conceivable crime. There would have to be a very pressing reason, an almost unique set of circumstances. Like the one linked to by the OP. If a known Islamic terrorist was caught in the act of perpetrating an outrage for example, then I think that some form of torture could be considered. And by torture, I don't mean "blow torch to his b@lls" or anything like, but something along the line of waterboarding, sensory deprivation etc.

Or anyone with dark skin & a beard. Fair game. :pac:

jill_valentine

Local-womanizer wrote: »

If I was an innocent man being tortured,but the person torturing me thinks I am guilty or think that I have the information they want,do you think they will accept "I dont know" for an answer and cease the torture?!

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Also the fact he won't disclose the location is a strong indication of guilt.

...

Local-womanizer

Not disclosing a location is not an admission of guilt in any form or case whatsoever!!!

He might not be talking with the police as he may see it unfair that he is suspected of this crime. He might have had previous dealings with the police where they have pissed him off and now he wont work with them in any scenario.

The fact is that torture is inhuman and ineffective. It could turn out this man is innocent. Imagine the damage done if this was the case after the man was tortured.

Sinfonia

pablomakaveli wrote: »

Also the fact he won't disclose the location is a strong indication of guilt.

The article doesn't say he's confessed, and it doesn't say that he knows where they are. It says he won't tell the police. Maybe that means he knows where they are but won't tell the police. Maybe it means he doesn't know where they are so won't tell the police. The report is actually really vague and inflammatory.

pablomakaveli

jill_valentine wrote: »

...

For all we know he could have told the police that he knows where they are but won't tell.

enfant terrible

Local-womanizer wrote: »

It achieves nothing

Have you researched how effective torture is as a means of extracting correct information or just guessing?

indough

morality is subjective

if its certain this guy has them then they should do whatever it takes to secure them, he loses his civil rights when he takes theirs from them

dont bother pussyfooting around with that ghey waterboarding crap either, just do something bad to his balls and he'll sing like a canary in no time

if they arent certain he's done it then they should reconsider as it wouldnt look too good for them if he turned out to be innocent

Doc

So you’re torturing me and I say I swear I don’t know where the girl and the mother are. How long do you keep torturing me before you believe me?

You’re torturing me and I say I don’t know where they are so you keep torturing me and I give you a random address just to make you stop. So you waste time and effort looking for people from unreliable information.

Torture is wrong and has no place in law enforcement.

Local-womanizer

enfant terrible wrote: »

Have you researched how effective torture is as a means of extracting correct information or just guessing?

From any recent study that has surfaced as a result of the Guantanamo Bay situation,many experts on the matter all come to the same conclusion that it is ineffective and above all extremely inhuman.

If there is a chance that one person out of 100 is wrongly tortured then it is wrong and immoral.

indough

its only ineffective if you have the wrong person, if you have the right guy and they arent talking then you just arent imaginative enough in your methods

Sinfonia

pablomakaveli wrote: »

For all we know he could have told the police that he knows where they are but won't tell.

For all we know he could have told the police that he knows where they are and been lying to **** with them for no apparent reason than to appease his own boredom, even though he's innocent. Maybe he didn't like being taken in for a crime he didn't commit.

For all we know he was at home beating off when they were kidnapped.

In other words, we don't know ****. Don't presume he's guilty.

m@cc@

Local-womanizer wrote: »

If there is a chance that one person out of 100 is wrongly tortured then it is wrong and immoral.

If there is a chance one innocent life could be saved due to torture of one man, it blurs the lines imo.

Sinfonia

indough wrote: »

its only ineffective if you have the wrong person, if you have the right guy and they arent talking then you just arent imaginative enough in your methods

You first have to be sure that you have the 'right guy', that is, you have the person who can give you the correct information. Which you can't possibly know until you torture them and they give you the information, and the information they give you eventually turns out to be true.

Doc

enfant terrible wrote: »

Have you researched how effective torture is as a means of extracting correct information or just guessing?

Although the primary purpose of torture is to terrorize a group and break the resistance of an enemy (Scarry, 1985; Conroy, 2000), the use of torture is frequently justified as an interrogation device. However, there is no evidence that torture is an effective means of gathering reliable information. Many survivors of torture report they that would have said anything to “make the torture stop” (Mayer, 2005; McCoy, 2005). Those who make the claim that “torture works” offer as evidence only unverifiable anecdotal accounts. Even if there are cases where torture may have preceded the disclosure of useful information, it is impossible to know whether less coercive forms of interrogation might have yielded the same or even better results.

Because torture-based interrogations are generally conducted in secret, there is no systematic research on the relationship between torture and false confessions. However, there is irrefutable evidence from the civilian criminal justice system that techniques less coercive than torture have produced verifiably false confessions in a surprising number of cases (Costanzo & Leo, 2006; Kassin & Gudjonsson, 2004). An analysis of DNA exonerations of innocent but wrongly convicted criminal suspects revealed that false confessions are the second most frequent cause of wrongful convictions, accounting for 24% of the total (see www.innocenceproject.org). In a recent large scale study, Drizin and Leo (2004) identified 125 proven false confessions over a 30-year period. Two characteristics of these known false confessions are notable. First, they tended to occur in the most serious cases—81% confessed to the crime of murder, and another 9% confessed to the crime of rape. Second, because only proven false confessions were included (e.g., cases where the confessor was exonerated by DNA evidence or cases where the alleged crime never occurred), the actual number of false confessions is likely to be substantially higher. Military action based on false information extracted through the use of torture has the potential to jeopardize the lives of military personnel and civilians.

old_aussie

Sinfonia wrote: »

Just noticed the part in the article about the AVO (which I think is like a restraining order) ... I wonder did the victim know and have a restraining order on the suspect..

Yes she did, that's why it was mentioned.

Apparently there were plenty of witnesses at the station, that's how police caught him.