Interrogation

Thinking Back...

Figure 1 Children Rivalry
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 Thinking back to when you were young, was there ever a time when your brother or sister had information that you thought you "needed" to have? They just found out the juiciest piece of information and they will not share it with you. It makes you want to find out what the information is more than anything. It makes you want to do things in order to make your sibling give up the information. In some cases maybe you try to annoy them until they give you the information or you may hit them and tell them that you won't stop until you have the information you want see figure 1. This is essentially what interrogation is and how it is used throughout the world, just on a higher level.

Cops and Robbers

       Another way to think about this concept is when a cop catches a criminal there are questions that are asked at the police station to try and figure out the crime that has been committed.


Figure 2 Interrogation room
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Sometimes there are crimes that cannot be figured out right away and there needs to be questions that need to be answered. These answers can be persuaded out of people and can be a huge help to the true story about the crime that has been committed. As seen in figure 2, there are rooms that can be specially made so that the person being questioned cannot see or hear anyone or anything outside of the room they are being held in. This is a time where this kind of questioning needs to be practiced. There doesn't always need to be physical coercion, there can be the fear of consequences such as jail time that can be a powerful motivator. Have you ever had your parents threaten to take your phone away or some other thing you love unless you did what they said? It is the same idea with the legal interrogation that is practiced today.

Physical Coercion

Figure 3 Waterboarding
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"There are ways of making you talk..." This is true, there are ways that are meant to inflict physical pain to the point where whatever information someone is holding back won't be more important than being alive. There are many types of physical coercion some are very painful and some are just down right uncomfortable and that is all. There is a technique that is particularly effective and it is called waterboarding see figure 3. This technique is meant to simulate drowning and send the victim into a state of fear to give up the information they are holding. The interrogator leans the victim down on an angle on a bench or a table, cover their entire face with a towel and then pour a steady stream of water onto their face. It suffocates the victim while their sinuses fill with water, giving them the sensation of drowning. There are also techniques that don't necessarily inflict pain on the victim, the interrogators just put them in extremely harsh and uncomfortable situations. For example, there were prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that were kept in what they call "stress positions" for hours at a time that would cause higher levels of anxiety in the victim. These types of interrogation can be just as bad sometimes as the waterboarding, driving a person crazy can be very effective.

Interrogation Today..
There many countries around the world that use techniques like these on their prisoners of war. The United States of America used techniques like these in past decades but have no since changed the boundaries in which we can treat our prisoners of war. The Geneva convention has set in place many laws and regulations for such treatment. The U.S. still uses tactics to recover information from such people today, they just use much different ways that are within the guidelines of the Geneva Convention. Some of the tactics that are used today are ones that were talked about previously such as stress positions and also sleep deprivation. Other popular techniques include loud noises for long periods of time, and exposing the victim in full nudity to feel alone and naked. These techniques have been proven to be effective.

What is your opinion on Interrogation?

 

References

All images were retrieved from www.google.com

Phillips, K. (2009). The methods list for interrogation. Retrieved from http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/the-methods-list-for-interrogation/

The water boarding video was retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=823cXoWW9Gw