I don't have an article on this right now, since it has happened some time ago.

Like I said; a while ago, a young German boy was abducted. The police quickly arrested the kidnapper, but the child was nowhere to be found. Because a person can only spend so long without food or water, the officers in question threatened the suspect with 'pain like he never experienced before' and even called in a local sport teacher to beat the truth out of him. Fortunately, it didn't come to that. And the suspect admitted that the kid was already dead. But now he may be realised, because of the circumstances under which he made his testimony.
What are your opinions on this? Is torture (to a certain degree) acceptable. (in general - or to save the life of a child).

Edit: spelling

[ 04-10-2003, 04:00 PM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

<font color=skyblue>I say yes.
Apparently, they knew without doubt (or say they did) that this was the man that did it. If they have reason to believe that they can make a rescue by scaring it or beating it out of the man that has committed the crime...I am all for it. That's what we need more of around here. Enough of this "humane rights of a criminal". If he don't wanna talk...make him talk.

Afterall...it worked...but the kid was already dead. Still...they have closure and know the end of the story.</font>

I agree 100% with larry on that.

Speaking from a purely emotional response, which is pretty much everybody's first response, I too would say yes. When crimes of that nature are concerned most people let emotions take over. From a more distant point of view though, I say no, because if this were actually made legal, the abuse of it could cause a lot more harm to innocents. So of course my heart says "if I were a cop interrogating this guy, I'd throttle him until he talked" but my head says that if we allow the police to torture suspects (who are, after all, innocent until proven guilty) we are making a huge mistake.

I also agree with Larry, if the person has done a crime, he has cancelled his constitutinal right or something like that. The police can do anything to him to get any sorts of information that may help solve the case.

*shrugs. A person is innocent until proven guilty. You can't just beat people until they confess. Even if you are fairly sure the suspect has commited a crime, you would still breaking one of the pillars on which our society is build by using methods such as torture.

This is just my humble opinion of course. Feel free to disagree.

Edit: spelling

[ 04-10-2003, 04:33 PM: Message edited by: Dreamer128 ]

I think the rules in place are plenty good enough. Evidence gained by such methods is inadmissable and the torturers will face criminal charges also.

The threateners may face legal retribution, but I don't think this will change much. The testimony obtained will be inadmissable, but the physical evidence and other evidence gathered beforehand still will be. I think it's probably enough to damn him anyway.

[ 04-10-2003, 05:39 PM: Message edited by: Sir Kenyth ]

I say the appliance of torture to save the life of a child is acceptable. A person screwing around and not saying how or where the child might be is a bad, bad thing to do. The bad thing is though, until you really have to use force to get information, it's already too late.

I'm going to be with Melusine on this one, as I do not condone torture in any case, not so much for what it does to the criminal, but for what it does to us; that is society as a whole. However, I do think that threats should be allowable (look at the old "good cop/bad cop" routine.}

Attalus and Melusine are right. It is certainly the case that the cops *can* and *do* use the old "interrogate for 12 straight hours" routine and threats and, yes, lies are allowed too, to get the info from the criminal. If this technique is good enough to get coerced false murder confessions, then it can get any piece of information. Plus, let's not forget that the guy could accidently *fall* and knock out a tooth or two on the concrete floor.

What I'm saying is, if we make blatant torture legal we open the door to abuse by those who ostensibly protect us.

[ 04-10-2003, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]