Public Torture Vs. Penal System

Torture is something that is known as wrong internationally. Torture is “deliberate, systematic or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons acting on the orders of authority, to force a person to yield information, to confess, or any other reason” (World Medical Association, 1975, pg.1). There is a general consensus that there is a right to be free from any kind of torture as it can be found in many different human rights treaties around the world. The treaties show that all of the thoughts about torture are pointing away from the right to torture someone no matter what the case

With the development of prisons, this changed how punishment and torture was viewed, at least in the public eye. The act of torturing, however unfortunate, comes naturally in regards to punishment. A big reason to why torture is no longer heard about in the prisons is because torture is now done the private spectrum instead of in

The delivery of punishment has changed significantly over the centuries. Up until the 19th century in England, imprisonment was not regarded as a punishment, it was merely used while the offender waited to be sentenced to their ‘real’ punishment (Bull, 2010; Hirst, 1998). Corporal punishment such as flogging, branding and mutilation, death by hanging, and transportation to other continents such as America and Australia were common punitive measures through the ages, until well into the 1800’s (Newburn, 2003). Although these extreme penalties are no longer acceptable or practised by criminal courts in England or Australia, in some ways, the past has

In contrast, some individuals may debate that torture and even some more minuscule forms of torture can be beneficial to obtaining the information needed. It is debated that torture has been used in a large portion of political systems in history, and that the “degree” of torture is a significant component when deciphering right vs. wrong. Moher argues that in a political system where torture is justifiable and legal, the torture used would be less extreme than what it is today (Moher, 2013). It is reasoned that different degrees of torture are more acceptable than others, in that some are less psychologically and physically harming. A

One of the many things that has been highly controversial and still is to this very day is how to properly punish and treat criminals. Here in America we now have the Eighth Amendment to protect us from cruel and unusual punishment. This was based off of a Parliament Act of 1689 that created England’s Bill of Rights. Before England had come up with the idea that humans should have guaranteed basic rights, it wasn’t a matter of whether or not a criminal would die, as much as it was a matter of how they would die. Torture devices such as the guillotine, the stake, the brazen bull, and the rack were used to spread the idea of fear and punishment that was ineffectually used by leaders to try and control their people throughout the history of Europe.

The War on Terror has produced several different viewpoints on the utilization of torture and its effectiveness as a means to elicit information. A main argument has been supplied that torture is ineffective in its purpose to gather information from the victim. The usefulness of torture has been questioned because prisoners might use false information to elude their torturers, which has occurred in previous cases of torture. It has also been supposed that torture is necessary in order to use the information to save many lives. Torture has been compared to civil disobedience. In addition, the argument has been raised that torture is immoral and inhumane. Lastly, Some say that the acts are not even regarded as torture.

Humiliation, Pain and Death: The Execution of Criminals in New France,” is an article that puts

In the chapter, “The body of the Condemned,” Foucault addresses the evolution of the punishment system and how it has gone from being a public spectacle to something that is done behind closed doors. Foucault opens the chapter with an extremely descriptive and gory representation of a public execution. The purpose of this was to display how execution have changed from being in the public eye to behind closed doors using the electric chair and legal injections. It was done in this fashion to deter individuals from committing heinous crimes. Today, the cost of prison time, fines, etc.. deter individuals instead. Punishment has become less about effecting the body and more about the changing the souls and integrating them back into society.

The history of torture in Europe may seem at first to be a steady progression of barbarous tactics, leading from one social purge to the next, but this is not completely the case. Torture has been used in a progression from primitive methods to the present more modern styles. It has also developed extensively, both in severity and variety of methods used. But in the end, torture has gone full circle; modern forms of torture are more like those methods used by savages than anything in between. Overall, the severity of torture has fluctuated, growing and receding with the passing of each new time period, but eventually reverting to its original state.

When punishing criminals, medieval torture devices used to be the solution for any wrongdoer throughout the history. Time passed; however, now torture is not used in most first world countries for even the worst of criminals and the reason is clear, because it is cruel and unusual. Despite this, there are still countries with citizens powerless to stand up to its government’s unjust ways. Kafka was known for writing stories about individuals struggling due to the overbearing influence of higher powers (biography.com). In this story, the apparatus is not a quick end given to the worst of criminals, but a symbol of cruelty and unusual treatment, which is forced upon the condemned man for a minor offense (Kafka, pg. 10). Not only would he suffer for his ‘crimes,’ but he was not given a trial, he does not know his punishment, he does not know his crime, and he does not know that he will be punished (Kafka, pg. 6). This situation is metaphorical to the hopelessness and injustice many people experience from higher powers for their crimes or offenses. Minor offenses that result in major punishments was not something that is exempt from the time period in which this story was written, or even now. Situations like this are happening in places like North Korea, where people can be sent to labor camps along with a large quantity of their family to work just for a

Foucault sees discipline moving from the body to the soul or mind. Through a lengthy introduction that illustrates the torture and killing of a man in public, we see how punishment and discipline was exerted by physical means and in front of a populace. That discipline and punish is now evolved into a form of confining those to a small space behind walls where the public cannot see them. The punishment is not of the body but of the mind and soul, as Foucault calls it. Foucault argues that a new relationship has been formed between the body and punishment by saying: “from being an art of unbearable sensations, punishment has become an economy of suspended rights.”

Imprisonment is a newer concept, retaliation, torture, death, and fines were more common ways of punishment hundreds of years ago, the offender had little to no rights. Retribution and deterrence were the focus of punishment, the type of crime committed would determine what kind of method would be used to make an offender suffer their consequences. Corporal punishment included, mutilation, branding, and public humiliation, for instance, liars would have their tongues ripped out, while

Michel Foucault is a very famous French intellectual who practiced the knowledge of sociology. Foucault analyzed how knowledge related to social structures, in particular the concept of punishment within the penal system. His theory through, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, is a detailed outline of the disciplinary society; in which organizes populations, their relations to power formations, and the corresponding conceptions of the subjects themselves. Previously, this type of punishment focused on torture and dismemberment, in which was applied directly to bodies. Foucault mentions through his literary piece, “the soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy: the soul is the prison of the body (p.30). However, today, the notion of punishment involves public appearances in a court and much more humane sentences. However, it is important to note and to understand the idea of power and knowledge; it is fundamental to understand the social system as a whole.

The various methods of torture show that people are born with evil in their hearts. For example, Hitler devised the gas chamber idea out of a need to kill large groups of people efficiently, and the fact that the people suffocated and suffered slowly was not a factor in the plan. Finding it not only acceptable, but also desirable, to kill large groups of people is in itself an evil concept that only a very disturbed mind would conceive and then execute. Adding to the concept the gradualness and painfulness of the method, it becomes evident that this plan came not only from the “need” for efficiency, but also the desire to hurt others as much as possible, which only can be described as an evil desire. In addition, many “doctors” in the concentration

"It [torture] assured the articulation of the written on the oral, the secret on the public, the procedure of investigation on the operation of the confession; it made it possible to reproduce the crime on the visible body of the criminal; in the same horror, the crime had to be manifested and annulled. It also made the body of the condemned man the place where the vengeance of the sovereign was applied, the anchoring point for a manifestation of power, an opportunity of affirming the dissymmetry of forces."[4]