Preview

Terrorism Pros And Cons Research Paper

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1270 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Terrorism Pros And Cons Research Paper
In the field of Criminal Justice, there are many topics of controversy. One topic of controversy is the use of third degree tactics on suspected terrorists. This topic has gotten worse since September 11, 2001 when the terror attacks happened on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. There are pros and cons to every controversial issue. Four cons that are related to this topic are the following: Police may be torturing an innocent person; Police could kill a person without trying to; Civilians may become scared by hearing police doing such things; It causes a lot of controversy in our society. On the other hand, there are positives as well. The four pros of this controversy are that police can get important information on terrorists; It can …show more content…
In order to achieve this goal, police may use a combination of negative or positive tactics. Getting a confession from someone is not a simple task, even though detectives sometimes get confessions from innocent people. No two interrogations are the same, but most exploit weaknesses in human nature. These weaknesses typically rely on stress when people experience contrasting extremes, like control and dependence, dominance and submission, and the maximization and minimization of consequence. Even the most hardened criminal will end up confessing as long as the interrogator can find the right combination of techniques that are based on the suspect’s personality and experiences. In the United States, scholars came to an estimate of that is somewhere between 42% and 55% of suspects confess to a crime when they are being interrogated. Police interrogations weren’t always this complex, not until the early 1900s anyway. In the United States, physical abuse was an acceptable (if not legal) method to getting a confession. Confessions obtained by the interrogation techniques—deprivation of food or water, bright lights shining in the eyes, physical discomfort and long time in isolation, beating with a rubber hose or other instruments that doesn’t leave any visible mark. This was usually admissible in court as long as the suspect signed and agreed to a waiver, stating that …show more content…
Information can matter even more when the adversary wears no uniform and blends in with the civilian population, in a “war against terrorism”. Can torture sometimes be justified to extract information? The international law says “No.” as laid down in treaties like the Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; all ban torture or any cruel, inhuman or degrading treatments, even in times of war. Most civilized people squirm of the thought of putting suspected terrorists on a rack or taking their toenails off. What if the suspect knew of the whereabouts of a ticking bomb or maybe a biological, chemical or even a nuclear bomb? Couldn’t a little bit of sleep deprivation, or sexual humiliation, maybe even water-drinking be justified to save hundreds or thousands of lives? In a BBC survey of 27,000 people in 25 countries last October, including America, over one of three people in nine of those countries considered the tactics of torture acceptable if it saves lives. The people who opposed were mostly from Europe and English-speaking countries. In another poll in 2005 by the Pew Research Centre found that nearly half of all Americans thought torturing suspected terrorists were sometimes

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Getting your teeth pulled and fingers snapped for not letting the enemy know where the rest of your brigade is hiding, is a common torture tactic. In most cases you just want the pain to stop, so you give false information. This is why I feel ,no, torture should not be a tactic to retrieve information and should be abolished in this country. In the essay The Torture Myth written by Anne Applebaum, torture is discussed and evaluated by the writer. Applebaum focuses on whether torture is a good vice to gain information from a person and it is insinuated that she does not, based on her arguments in the essay. I too believe torture is not a humane nor moral way to obtain truthful information.…

    • 451 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In "The Social Psychology of False Confessions: Compliance, Internalization, and Confabulation" by Saul M. Kassin and Katherine L. Kiechel, the author asserts that false evidence supporting a crime will make individuals admit to a guilt even if they did not commit such thing. To support this the author provides us with information about the experiment, the research information derived from the experiment, and real life scenarios. In the introduction the authors give us techniques and information on how the police get what they are in search of. These methods include presentation of false evidence such as fingerprints, appeals to god and religion, false friendships, and prison informants. interrogation are done with the same process, police…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    At some point everyone has heard of torture. It could have been in a movie or on the news, but they have heard of it. In this day and age, people would like to have believed it was all behind us in the past. Then 9/11 happened, everyone’s lives were changed with one simple act of cruelty. Before 9/11 hit the U.S. in a wave of pain, panic, and anger, our viewpoints on torture would probably have been less likely that it should be allowed. The decision to torture people who are suspected of being part of terrorist groups has always been decided by the government, for the simple reason that it is required to keep us safe from harm. Some people believe that torture is cruel, unsightly and just inhumane. On the other hand there are people who see it the same way but also believe it could be necessary in extreme circumstances. We’re going to look at two different points of torture: When it is acceptable and when it is not acceptable.…

    • 886 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What have been the most common tactics/weapons and threats used by terrorists/terror groups in the Middle East since 9/11/01?…

    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After reading the article and the chapter I came to the conclusion that police will do anything in their hands to pressure and find incriminating evidence in cases where there might be none in order to solve a case. I don’t want to sound bias due to my personal experiences but the reality is that the goal of “questioning” is to elicit a confession which in many cases police will pressure to get one. I wasn’t aware using false evidence is legal in order to peer-pressure possible suspects to provoke a confession. From a personal perspective I believe this is wrong in many levels and even thought the article states it is only used in “some” cases I believe the police is capable of taking advantage of it. Police of course prefer confessions rather than other type of evidence due to the fact that it saves them time and they can avoid trial.…

    • 634 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psychology of law

    • 1027 Words
    • 3 Pages

    I believe the aspect of police interrogations that is most troublesome is the coercive aspect. The reason I believe this is a serious problem is some interviewees are more susceptible to giving false confessions than others, even under the slightest pressure from police. Children, teenagers, the mentally handicapped, drug users, and people with psychological problems may be the most vulnerable. Even though psychological coercion is the primary cause of police-induced false confessions, individuals differ in their ability to withstand interrogation pressure and thus in their susceptibility to making false confessions. All other things being equal, those who are highly suggestible or compliant are more likely to confess falsely. Interrogative suggestibility tends to be heightened by sleep deprivation, fatigue, and drug or alcohol withdrawal. Individuals who are highly compliant tend to be conflict avoidant, acquiescent, and eager to please others, especially authority figures. With these coercive tactics, the police play on these weaknesses and pray on the individuals. This is a problem even if the individual is in fact guilty but is much more of a problem when the individual is innocent and gives a false confession.…

    • 1027 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We are put under a time crunch that affects how we deal with situations. Michael Levin wrote in his essay “The Case for Torture” that we should use torture because it is better to torture one person who is obviously guilty. This would help insure that thousands of lives could be saved at the expense of just one or a few people. In a brief statement about terrorist’s rights, Levin says “torture is barbaric? Mass murder is more barbaric” (532). In this simple statement, Levin argues that torturing is the lesser of two evils. And it is true. Would we rather sacrifice many lives for one that is potentially guilty? Most would say no. In fact, if we allow torture to become legal, we might get results that many have not thought of. If torture was made legal, it could potentially intimidate future terrorists into thinking twice about their plans. Still, nothing is for…

    • 1284 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Torturing Prisons

    • 1727 Words
    • 7 Pages

    "Torturing Prisoners in the War on Terror Is Never Justified."At Issue: How Should the United States Treat Prisoners in the War on Terror?. Lauri S. Friedman. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale.…

    • 1727 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    False Confessions

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Leo, PH.D., J.D. and Brittany Liu, B.A, two hundred and sixty-four jury-eligible students from a large university in southern California completed a study. Some categories of interrogation tactics were Accusation/re-accusation, challenging denials, Confrontation with true evidence of guilt, Confrontation with false evidence of guilt, promises of leniency and Threats/use of harm. With a mean age of 19.78 years, 64% male and all from different backgrounds who were either victims of a crime or been on a jury themselves agreed that “For false confessions, threats of harm were believed to be more likely to elicit a false confession than all other tactics.”. (What do potential jurors know about police interrogation techniques and false confessions? Page 388 Lines 15-17) Participations in the study acknowledged that interrogation techniques can be psychosocially coercive, but believed that the techniques are not likely to cause a false confession. When a confession is supported with information from expert witnesses, jurors are able to put emotions aside and use their intuition to come up with an idea of whether the confession was coercive or…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    On one side of the controversy, a significant community of experts argue that a government should be able to use torture, but only under very particular and exceptional circumstances, such as a terrorist attack, when thousands of innocent lives…

    • 1512 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Arguments Against Torture

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Justifying the needs of implementing various methods of torture is strongly a recommended option to protecting America’s security and American citizens. While the debate of whether the use of torture is valid to protect the United States of America overall, supporters of the argument strongly argue that interrogating terrorists is only useful when various torture methods are involved. During one of the United States of America’s darkest periods in the nation’s history, the terrorists attack of September 11, 2001 rebooted the discussion of how various methods of torture are a justifiable means to not only place vengeance on the terrorists involved in the attacks on America’s soil. In the course of the aftermath of the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, supporters of using various methods of torture during the interrogation process observed a central argument to prove their case. For example, if America’s security becomes unfortunately at risk of another terrorists attack, the nation could potentially protect Americans by implementing various methods of torture to only not question terrorists’ against their willpower.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Here in America, police are poorly trained on the psychological effects of the depth of interrogation and how it may lead to the result of a confession. Like most people on the outside, once they hear a confession they are more likely to believe it whether it may be true or not. This, sometimes, is the same approach that law enforcement takes when they hear a confession. Law enforcement thinking should be quite different than a person on the outside, they should have training on whether or not the confession is valuable to the case or not. "…

    • 1123 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    It should be noted that in many cases it 's only the guilty who confesses. Use of trickery and deception exposes human weaknesses. The stress levels arising from psychological manipulation due to dominance, control and dependence by the police end up making even the hardened criminal to confess (Blandon, Sperry & Leo, 2010). As such the deception of maximizing and minimizing the consequences of the crime committed and in cases shifting blame on others provide a leeway for suspects to confess. The interrogator therefore requires having the right combinations of circumstances or consequences pertaining to the suspects’ experiences and…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In discussions of ticking time bombs, one controversial issue has been how to deal with the alleged guilty terrorist once he is captured. On the one hand, some people, including Michael Levin, a libertarian writer and educator, argue that it is in the US government’s right to torture the guilty terrorist because his knowledge could be used to save the lives of millions. On the other hand, others, such as Philip Heymann, who is a writer that had worked in the government field, firmly states that torture should never be used because the chance that it will produce true and useful information is nearly impossible and it is vastly more crucial to preserve the international bans on torture. Shirley Jackson elaborates on Heymann’s view when she…

    • 516 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The suspect is interrogated, presented with false information, and admits guilt to actions he or she committed; or the suspect is interrogated, presented with false information, and admits guilt to actions he or she never committed. How and why does this occur, are the tactics that police use justified, and on a whole do they produce competent results? The confession to a crime is viewed by law enforcement and the judicial system as the proverbial nail in the coffin; admission is highly sought and revered. Brasswell et al., (2015) detailed eight deceptive interrogation techniques that law enforcement use to secure an admission, many of which can be viewed simply as police officers doing their job within the constraints the judicial system have given them. Alternately fabricated evidence, exaggerating the nature and severity of the offense, misrepresenting identity, and the use of promises stand out as the four that have an overt ethical dilemma. These tactics have elicited false confessions; coerced-compliant false confessions, and coerced-internalized false confessions (Kassin, 2008), both of which occur with pressure from the police and in this day and age, most of the police induced pressure being psychological in…

    • 1241 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays