When you have a tyrant tormenting your left flank, (Molinaro)
you can only hope for miracle to happen...
Hopefully somebody will go JackBauer on him and mutilate him enough, so that we would be ridden of him!
Seriously, it would be hypocritical and utopia, to believe that terrorists and criminals will comply, just because of our superior ethic codes exist...
At extreme cases, certain types of chemical "torturing" or just the threat of it,
is enough to do the trick.
Think of the psychological role the eventuality/threat of a grave penalty holds.
To completely remove this eventuality/threat by law, would encourage criminals to do more damage, knowing that they would escape with it unpunished.
There is only one certain language those animals do understand/respect, if you ever deal with them personally, you will understand...
Completely banning any kind of torture is unrealistic anyway.
Do you even know what this includes?? (Jail for ex is the restriction of freedom)
We should clarify what exactly, do we mean by "torture", in the first place.
Some practices differ a lot from other practices (closing an individual into a completely dark cell, for ex is totally dif from extracting his fingernails)
Some kind of physical tortures should be completely banned though, no question about it...
Esp the ones including high risks of permanent damage, with no real efficiency.
It is indeed the truth that practically, the right to torture, even at extreme cases, with some specific procedures, is/could be abused.
Therefore it is wiser that the states who cant control the excessive violence,
coming through their very own, law enforcements tools.
Should not be allowed that by default, at any kind of circumstances... just to avoid unnecessary damage, which is very probable to happen.
But this is their problem, this indicates that the system is greatly faulted to its core.
Its like ripping off the stop plates from the streets, because the drivers are hardly paying any attention to the traffic lights...
I think that this matter is wrongfully approached by the masses.
Judging from previous uncontrolled uses through history and totalitarian misconceptions, poisoned with pre-justice...
I think it is utterly wrong that from one side we have laws that supposedly forbid any kind of torture, but it happens anyway, from untrained personnel, for the wrong reasons, with the wrong procedure and the wrong results.
Rather than having an efficient procedure, marginally acceptable by human rights/laws and highly effective. A procedure that would bring optimal results and minimal damages, but would only happen if the matter wasnt considered a taboo, due to previous incidents that stained human history for ever...
For ex, you have a dangerous rapist/adulter/murderer on custody, he has escaped from prison and has found the opportunity to kidnap two young boys and keep them locked in a cellar, while creating and posting some relevant videos in utube.
After getting caught in a gas station, traveling to a third state, he refuses to reveal the location of the cellar though, in an attempt to deny the authorities, the chance to discover more incriminating evidence against him, despite the overwhelming data/info that are already enough to convince him again.
Claiming that the videos posted in utube and found in a memory stick in his pocked were fake.
After two days of "nice talk", he refuses to reveal the location of the cellar.
He has absolutely nothing to lose anyway...
Should we let those children starve to death, just to ensure that his human rights will remain unharmed??
Should we forbid by law absolutely any kind of treatment that could be remotely considered physical or mental torture??
Imagine how those criminals would respond to that...