Torture: Not the Answer

Torture: Not the Answer

In America's criminal justice system, we follow the legal guideline of "innocent until proven guilty". However, there have been questions as to whether or not immediate torture should be integrated into our already complex crime tactics. Torture is never justified in any way because it completely contradicts the "innocent until proven guilty" rule, it is not guaranteed to achieve its intended purpose and it also leaves its victims with long-term psychological and physical effects. The Sixth Amendment claims that a person that is being accused of a crime has the right to a trial by jury before any further actions regarding their punishment are implemented.

According to the UN Declaration of Protection from Torture, torture is any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed (Forrest 5). Punishment by torture dates back further than the early 1900's and is still used in some countries around the world as a primary crime deterrent. Its physical effects are very graphic ranging from a suspect being covered in bruises to even death. Victims are sometimes placed in cells with gaping wounds on their bodies that fail to heal because the ankle-deep sewage that infests the room settles inside of their flesh. Direct hits to the body and certain kinds of restraints have damaged the nerves of many and caused paralysis in several others (Forrest 114-116).

Some physical effects of torture are not visible. However, this does not negate the fact that a person has been affected by it. Beatings have the potential of causing the victim's body to release such quantities of muscle breakdown products into the bloodstream which can cause kidney