The Efficacy of Torture and the Pesky Ends-Means Problem

A few days ago, I was engaged in a conversation about the use of torture with a colleague. It started when he asked me my opinion about Israel--I said that I don't like it when countries violate human rights, and I don't play favorites. Besides, torture is ineffective in gathering information.

"That might be a more convincing argument," said my colleague. "And then there's the issue of innocent people."

"How are you going to know if they're innocent?" I asked. "Torture it out of them? Police always operate under the suspicion that the detainee is guilty; it's up to the courts to decide whether or not the cops made a mistake."

I feel the same way about torture that I do about racial profiling (which my colleague also views somewhat favorably). Both practices are wrong prima facie; but that's not enough to convince the practices' supporters that these tactics should be abandoned. The real point is that torture and racial profiling don't work. As I pointed out to my colleague, people will say literally anything to get out of being tortured. You can't trust the information you get from torturous interrogation; it's just an exercize in cruelty.

Don't believe me? Here's a neat party trick: if you have a friend who advocates the use of torture, you want to get them into a full nelson (that's where you stand behind your victim and hook your arms around theirs with your hands locked behind their head and your elbows locked around their shoulders). With your fingers, find the soft spot directly below their ear and behind their jaw (on both sides). With your index finger, apply pressure slowly but firmly to this spot until the victim drops their drink or starts screaming (this should take about a half second). While maintaining pressure, gently inform your victim that you are not going to let them go until they admit that they personally killed your Lord and Saviour. The chances are good they'll admit to the murder within five seconds.

And why would anyone lie to their interrogator like that? Because they understand the relationship between torturer and tortured. Give me the information I want and I'll stop the pain. Every torturous interrogation works the exact same way, whether the victim is guilty or innocent. And even if they're guilty, it's no guarantee that they'll give up information or that this information will indeed be accurate or valuable.

Now, consider what you do when you violate innocents. In many cases the innocent won't even live to tell the tale, but let's assume they do somehow. Will the aforementioned interrogation increase the faith of the wrongly tortured, or will it turn them against the justice system?

A quick addendum about racial profiling, since I mentioned it before: as I asked my colleague, if you were Bin Laden and you knew American authorities were using racial profiling to thwart terrorism, would you be sending Saudi citizens to hijack planes, or would you send a blond-haired, blue-eyed Bosnian Muslim?

"Good luck trying to find them," said my colleague. (After the genocides of the 1990s, there are still about 2 million Bosniaks living in Bosnia and Herzegovina.)

Profiling of any sort makes you more suceptible to tactical changes. If you're looking for people wearing blue and the terrorists know this, guess what? They're going to stop wearing blue to avoid detection. On the other hand, you're going to get a lot of angry blue-wearers who are innocently detained. In the case of racial profiling, it just reinforces the view targeted minorities may have that law enforcement are a bunch of racists (oops! If you use racial profiling, you are a racist anyway, so no further harm done there).

Something to think about next time you hear some Ann Coulter-type whining about how blonde people ought to be above airport security.

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