Rapport-building more effective than traditional torture

                   

Contemporary research has discovered that when interrogating highly important suspects with potentially vital information, it is much more effective to build a rapport rather than opting for the cliché torture methods often seen in American films. It appears that in America – where tortuous methods such as sleep deprivation and waterboarding are widely used as a CIA interrogation practice – citizens are almost ideologically split in half, with some supporting torture, and some opposing it.

This traditional method has been questioned by many for its obvious unethicality. The CIA have been criticised for making detainees stand on broken feet, force feeding them, and even humiliating them by stripping them nude. Not only are these methods highly unethical in practice, but they can also have a lasting psychological impact on detainees long after they have been interrogated, as many detainees can develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from enduring such torture.

Arguably, a blind eye may well be turned towards the unspeakable conduct found within places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, as some citizens may believe that using torture is a necessary evil in order to obtain essential information about terrorist plots. However, building a relationship with the detainee by showing respect and empathy increases the likelihood of receiving facts and details.

A recent Senate Intelligence Committee report argues that the barbaric CIA interrogation techniques only result in “fabricated” information, and are “deeply flawed”. The Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman, Dianne Feinstein, continued to say that any information gathered from such techniques could have been obtained from other means, rendering torturous interrogation both useless and completely unnecessary.

So, is building a rapport with detainees the way forward?

A recent study by Jane Goodman-Delahunty suggests so. Her research illustrates that inhumane treatment is no longer needed, or possibly never needed in the first place, in order to gain information or a confession from terror suspects. This involved interviewing different interrogators from countries such as Australia and Norway on their experiences with 30 terror suspects, focusing on the outcomes of interrogations and the methods which they used. The results show that “disclosure is 14 times more likely to occur” when using a rapport-building interrogation technique rather than using force and control and confessions were 4 times more likely when the interrogator was respectful and neutral towards the suspect.

Perhaps this research can be used for good, and instead of the CIA treating suspects with abrasive cruelty, information can be extracted from detainees in a much more humane manner in the future.

Catherine Joyce

Anonymity can be dangerous

Mainly a feature which is only available online, anonymity is widely regarded as a useful tool when we want to hide our identity. A lack of identity enables users to voice opinions they would be otherwise afraid to express – half of the things you say online, you wouldn’t say in real life – or talk about something that they wish to keep separate from their personal lives, but mostly it is used for evil. When given a screen to hide behind, some regular citizens who seem completely normal allow their sadistic and anti-social sides come out to play.

It’s said that “anonymity breeds courage”, and this has been shown as online forums have become a breeding ground for hateful comments and insults, leading to the American Psychiatric Association naming cyberbullying as the top online risk for teenagers. Adverse behaviour like this has become so substantial in recent years that a term has actually been coined for the way that people behave anonymously online: the Online Disinhibition Effect, which consists of six features that can change a person’s behaviour online. One of these is called dissociative imagination. It is often believed by people who think nothing of sending and posting abusive messages to others online (sometimes known as trolls) that the online world is nothing more than a game, fictional in comparison to our reality offline. And since it’s all “make-believe”, then surely any hurtful posts made don’t have any real-life consequences?

Despite all of this happening with a computer as a platform, anonymity can also explain behaviours outside the cyber world, such as rioting. Since there are so many of them, rioters fail to have an individual identity whilst in a crowd; and as long as they remain amongst the sea of similar faces, they remain nameless and faceless. Instead of hiding behind a screen, they are hidden amongst the many people around them, and it’s unlikely that they will be caught individually for any crimes they may commit. Consequently, a rioter wouldn’t think twice about smashing a shop window and stealing anything that’s on the shelves.

This idea of deindividuation has been explored by Diener et al in their 1976 study into children’s trick or treating behaviour, which found that children who were anonymous (by having costumes that concealed their identity) stole more sweets when left alone with the bowl, than those who had who were not anonymous. Aside from this, there is lots of research which demonstrates that negative social behaviour is linked to anonymity. Douglas and McGarty found that within the online world, anonymous participants in discussion forums were more likely to engage in “flaming” behaviour.

Which leads me to believe that if online or offline a person can become depersonalised, and completely separate themselves from their identity, then they may be capable of anything.

Catherine Joyce