Continuing Education for Psychologists

WHY TORTURE DOESN'T WORK
The Neuroscience of Interrogation

Torture is banned because it is cruel and inhumane. But as Shane O'Mara writes in this account of the human brain under stress, another reason torture should never be condoned is because it does not work the way torturers assume it does.

In countless films and TV shows such as Homeland and 24, torture is portrayed as a harsh necessity. If cruelty can extract secrets that will save lives, so be it. CIA officers and others conducted torture using precisely this justification. But does torture accomplish what its defenders say it does? For ethical reasons, there are no scientific studies of torture. But neuroscientists know a lot about how the brain reacts to fear, extreme temperatures, starvation, thirst, sleep deprivation, and immersion in freezing water, all tools of the torturer's trade. These stressors create problems for memory, mood, and thinking, and sufferers predictably produce information that is deeply unreliable–and, for intelligence purposes, even counterproductive. As O'Mara guides us through the neuroscience of suffering, he reveals the brain to be much more complex than the brute calculations of torturers have allowed, and he points the way to a humane approach to interrogation, founded in the science of brain and behavior.

Torture may be effective in forcing confessions, as in Stalin's Russia. But if we want information that we can depend on to save lives, O'Mara writes, our model should be Napoleon: "It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile."

Shane O'Mara is Professor of Experimental Brain Research at Trinity College, Dublin and Director of the Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience

Offers a passionate and informative riposte to those who feel a 'war on terror' justifies barbarism.
--Hayden Murphy The Guardian

Shane O'Mara's book is a rebuttal to the torture memos that came out a few years ago that justified 'enhanced interrogation' methods used in Guantanamo Bay and Northern Ireland. He takes an empirical approach to torture. From a scientific point of view, even before getting into the morality, it is just ineffective. The FBI said the best technique is to get clever interrogators who are good at forming bonds. The analogy he uses is that if you had a computer that had information you wanted you wouldn't hit it with a hammer because that would affect its recall. Humans work the same way.
--Neil Delamere Irish Examiner

A powerful, convincing and thought-provoking volume. O'Mara presents us with the overwhelming scientific evidence that torture simply does not work. What is more, it damages memory and is highly likely to produce flawed intelligence. Claims of the utility of torture are no more than 'cargo cult science.' The significance of this book is difficult to overstate. Its conveyance of moral outrage as regards the practice of torture is unqualified and it delivers the evidence to repudiate all utilitarian justifications of the practice. It offers science-based pointers to manners of conducting interrogation that are both more effective and compliant with human rights standards. Furthermore, given the questions surrounding the utility of all statement-related evidence, it supports the long-standing calls for more focus on such other evidentiary sources as forensics and surveillance. It has a great deal to say to contemporary policy-makers and for police and intelligence services, not least at a moment of enhanced attention to counter-terrorism. The book demonstrates the importance of science in the pursuit of human rights. O'Mara deserves some sort of prize for this work.
--Michael O'Flaherty Irish Times

Instead of simply providing utilitarian arguments, [O'Mara] argues that there is no evidence from psychology or neuroscience for many of the specious justifications of torture as an information-gathering tool. Providing an abundance of gruesome detail, O'Mara marshals vast, useful information about the effects of such practices on the brain and the body.
--Lasana T. Harris Nature

Does torture actually work? To be sure, it can compel people to confess to crimes and to repudiate their religious and political beliefs. But there is a world of difference between compelling someone to speak and compelling them to tell the truth. Yet the assumption underlying the ticking time bomb defense is that abusive questioning reliably causes people to reveal truthful information that they would otherwise refuse to disclose. Few scholars have scrutinized this assumption–and none with the rigor, depth, and clarity of Shane O'Mara in his excellent book, Why Torture Doesn't Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation. Invoking the relevant science, he shows that torture undermines the very neurocognitive mechanisms requisite for recalling veridical information from memory.
--Richard McNally Science

If the aim of the torturers is to extract information, they should read O'Mara's book and adopt gentler methods. CIA and the rest of you, read and note. Neuroscience says your methods don't work.
--Steven Rose Times Higher Education