In general, executions in Russia were similar to those in other countries. Offenders were burned to death, hanged or beheaded. Victims were burned in the middle of a pile of logs filled with straw. Beheading required the victim to place his head on a block and submit to the blow of an axe or sword. This easy, instant death was sometimes made harder by first lopping off the hands and feet. Executions of this kind were so common, wrote one Dutch traveler, "that if one is performed at one end of town, in the other they seldom know anything of it". Counterfeiters were punished by taking their false coins, melting them down and pouring the molten metal down their throats. Rapists were castrated.
Peter the Great: His Life and World (Robert K. Massie)
Although public torture and execution were no novelty to any seventeenth-century European, what struck most visitors to Russia was the stoicism, "the unconquerable stubbornness" with which most Russians accepted these terrible agonies. They steadfastly resisted hideous pain, refusing to betray friends, and when condemned to death they went meekly and calmly to the gallows or block. An observer in Astrachan saw thirty rebels beheaded in less than half an hour. There was no noise or clamor. The condemned men simply went to the block and laid their heads in the pools of blood left by their predecessors. None even had his hands tied behind him.
This incredible hardiness and unconquerable endurance of pain astonished not only foreigners but also Peter himself. Once, after a man had been tortured four times by knout and fire, Peter approached him in sheer wonder and asked how he could stand such great pain. The man was happy to talk about it and revealed to Peter the existence of a torture society of which he was a member. He explained that nobody was admitted without first being tortured, and that thereafter promotion within the society rested on being able to accept higher grades of torture. To this bizarre group, the knout was nothing. "The sharpest pain of all," he explained to Peter, "is when a burning coal is placed in the ear; nor is it less painful when the head is shaved and extremely cold water is let fall slowly drop by drop upon it from a height."
More astonishing and even touching was the fact that sometimes the same Russians who could withstand the knout and fire and remain mute until death would break if handled with kindness. This happened with the man who told Peter of the torture society. He had refused to utter a word of confession although he had been tortured four times. Peter, seeing that he was invulnerable to pain, walked up to him and kissed him, saying, "it's no secret to me that you know about the plot against me. You have been punished enough. Now confess of your own accord out of the love you owe me as your sovereign. And I swear, by the God who has made me tsar, not only to completely pardon you, but in addition, as a special mark of my clemency, to make you a colonel.". This unorthodox approach so unnerved and moved the prisoner that he took the Tsar in his arms and said, "For me, this is the greatest torture of all. There is no other way you could have made me speak.". He told Peter everything, and the Tsar, true to the bargain, pardoned him and promoted him to colonel.
Iranians wounded by the security forces during the ongoing nationwide protests avoid treatment in the country’s increasingly unsafe hosp ...
The family of an Iranian doctor who was tortured and killed by Iranian security forces for treating injured protesters are under pressur ...
I need 3 years of therapy for all the news I've lived through the last 3 months. Then I need two lifetimes of therapy to get over all the trauma I've been through the last 20 years.
I was reading about alleged ‘hostage justice’ in Japan and wondering about Gosho’s opinion when writing Detective Conan. Apparently Japanese police can hold a suspect for 23 days, isolating them too, including from lawyers. A safeguard from forced confessions from prolonged pressure during that is that the confession has to include a ‘revelation of secret’ or a verifiable fact that only the perpetrator could have known and which the police don’t at the time.
Detective Conan thrives on Shinichi having figured out every step of the crime and confronting those involved with how and even why it was done. He doesn’t leave any information unknown for the murderer to confess to as a revelation of secret, and a real police officer in an interrogation room would not be allowed to throw out their own theory and just push for the murderer to say Yes, that’s how. On the other hand, almost always the murderers are freed by the “one truth” being revealed and embrace it, in grief or fury, but they WANT to share their truth and what drove them to act, not hide it away anymore, so it’s implied they wouldn’t fight the courts to deny what happened after Shinichi is finished with them.
I don’t know what the average Japanese reader thinks of Shinichi’s strategy, where he isn’t satisfied by evidence alone but also doesn’t angle for a court-admissible confession, and yet he demands the criminals and any innocent but involved people face the truth of what they’ve done and the consequences.
Is it accepted that the police would only arrest someone guilty, and so getting the confession is just the last step? Detective Conan certainly treats the crimes like it’s a vital deadline as Conan works out how to reveal and confront the crime right that day, before any arrest is made. I was thinking it was so the real culprit wouldn’t have time to destroy evidence if the police let them go or Conan had to leave and tiny Conan doesn’t have the sway to go to the police once reports are in the system about the continuing investigation. But if arrests are seen as so absolute, like a conviction already, so it’s not just a detained suspect while they keep looking for other evidence, would be an interesting idea. It could even be an in-universe explanation for how very long the police in DC are willing to hold a large group of people up near the scene while they keep investigating, which I always thought was a stretch on reality to fit the murder mystery trope where a pool of suspects are trapped together for hours like being in a snowed-in manor or on a ship.
Part eight! It’s! Kinda long? Also tw for implied/referenced past child abuse
***
Alastair was frustrated with him for the rest of the night, and Silas did his best to keep from upsetting him more. At the end of the night he sent Silas to his own room, probably not intending it to be a good thing. Silas acted appropriately upset though, yet obedient enough to not cause an issue.
After Alastair realized he wasn’t going anywhere, he’d gifted him with his own room. Said room was more like a closet, big enough for a bed and a dresser, with no windows and a door that locked from the outside. It felt safe to him though, Alastair wasn’t in it and he could have at least a moment to himself. It felt nice.
He laid awake anxiously for most of the day, he knew Elise would be going into town and that Dahlia would Finally know the extent of his situation. He was excited to finally escape, but most excited to see Dahlia again. Hell, he was excited for the tongue lashing he was bound to get. Dahlia was coming for him, or she would be, and Dahlia was safe. To him, Dahlia meant home.
***
Dahlia was angry. No, not angry, infuriated. She’d never been so mad at him before and as she slid her silver blade into its sheath she wasn’t quite sure if she planned to use it on him or the vampire.
She had a lot to think about as she trekked up the winding road that lead out of town and to the vampire’s mansion. She should’ve known Silas would do this, he always was incredibly stubborn. Rumors started circling through town, girls were going missing and when people were sent to ask the mansion’s inhabitants, they also went missing. Something had to be done, that was Silas and Dahlia’s job after all. But Silas, stupid Silas insisted that he should go alone. He said it was too dangerous for Dahlia to go with him and she should have strangled him right there.
She marched up to that house bright and early the day after Elise visited, his letter had said the vampire always went to bed right before dawn. She should have more than enough time to break this stupid man out of there. Elise was waiting outside the main gates to let her in, she couldn’t help but feel guilty because the poor girl looked so anxious.
“G-good morning, ma’am.” She said, smiling nervously.
“Good morning, Elise. You know you don’t have to call me ma’am, right?” She rose an eyebrow.
“R-right! Um, we, we should head in.” She said, motioning for her to follow before hurrying ahead. She was surprised there was no sort of security or guards, this vampire must’ve been real sure of himself and his staff to leave his home unprotected like this. She didn’t have a good feeling about it, but she figured if she hurried it wouldn’t be a problem.
Elise took her in through a side door, leading her through the mansion. It was as if no one lived there, the curtains all drawn shut and the halls were silent. She couldn’t help but feel on edge though, she was anxious yet excited knowing Silas could finally come home. Elise led her up a grand staircase and down a winding maze of halls, eventually stopping in front of the door.
“H-he’s in here…” she said softly. Dahlia knelt down to inspect the lock, sliding her bag off her shoulder. She tried to push her excitement down and focus, taking out the tools she needed and working on picking the lock. It wasn’t too difficult, thankfully, and as soon as it was unlocked she hastily shoved her things into her bag, jumping to her feet and opening the door.
The room was absolutely tiny, enough for a bed and dresser and Silas, fast asleep. He didn’t look as bad as she expected, he was clean, he was dressed in decent clothes and his hair was actually nearer than normal, but that alone was reason to worry. She approached him, glaring silently at the collar around his neck, and gently shook him to wake him up. He opened his eyes slowly, looking confused for a moment before his eyes widened.
“D-Dahlia!” He sat up quickly, nearly slamming their heads together.
“Shhh!” She put a finger to her lips. She was so happy to see him, so angry he was here at all, she couldn’t decide if she wanted to hug him or slap him, but figured both could wait. “We can talk later, we need to go now.” He nodded, quickly getting up and pulling his shoes on. Dahlia frowned when she noticed he seemed to wince every time he put his foot down, something was clearly wrong. As they exited the room he quickly turned to Elise, grabbing her hand.
“Come with us.” He said seriously.
“W-what?!” Her eyes widened, she looked terrified.
“Come with us, please. I can’t just leave you here, it wouldn’t be right.”
“Our place is small but I think we can handle one more.” Dahlia smiled at her.
“No, no I can’t, I’m sorry.” She shook her head, stepping away. “Please, you need to hurry, just go.” She insisted. Dahlia glanced at Silas, they were both clearly uncomfortable with this idea.
“We’ll come back for you then. There’s no way we’re gonna let this bastard live.” She told Elise.
“Just… be careful, please.” She said softly. “Get home safe.”
“Don’t worry, we will.” Silas told her. They shared a final goodbye, Silas thanked her for her help, but they really did have to get going. Despite the pain he seemed to be in Silas didn’t say much, and he hurried to keep up with her. They were getting close to the exit, they were so close to freedom. And then a voice made Silas freeze in his tracks.
“What do you think you’re doing little hunter?” Dahlia whipped around, immediately putting herself between Silas and the vampire.
“Stay away from him.” She said seriously. It just made her angrier when the vampire seemed to ignore her, looking to Silas.
“Come here, pet. Now.” He said sternly. He stayed right where he was, he wouldn’t even turn around. It’s like he didn’t even want to face what was going on.
Dahlia, however, had been waiting a long time to face this sick fuck. Long enough that she disregarded every bit of common sense, even if she didn’t kill him she just wanted to make him hurt, make him suffer even a fraction of the suffering he’d caused Silas. She unsheathed her blade, charging at this stupid vampire with an awful smug look on his face. He didn’t even move, he clearly wasn’t bothered, and when she raised her hand to stab him he quickly snatched her wrist, his grip tight.
“Let me go!” She shouted, trying to wrench her hand free.
“Little hunter, if you know what’s good for you you’ll come here.” He said, once again ignoring her, only pissing her off more.
“Stop talking to him! Just leave him alone!” She yelled, and finally, the vampire looked at her.
“You need to be quiet.” He said. His grip suddenly tightened, and with a sickening snap a wave of pain went through her wrist.
She screamed, involuntarily dropping her blade, and finally Silas turned to face them.
“S-stop! Please, let her go, don’t hurt her anymore!” He begged.
“Then come. Here.” The vampire ordered. Silas immediately did as he was told, he looked miserable, and it just made her angrier that he was following commands like this.
“Silas don’t listen to him! You don’t have to do whatever he says!” She snapped, blinking away tears. Her wrist hurt so much and the vampire hadn’t loosened his grip at all.
“He does if he wants you to make it out of here alive.” The vampire glared at her. Still gripping her injured wrist he started to pull her along, despite her shouted protests. Silas obediently followed, he looked numb, it made her sick. Something horrible had happened to him, this wasn’t the Silas she knew. There was no anger, no fight in him, he’d been completely worn down. It was such a strange image to her, even she was suddenly somewhat scared.
***
“What do you say?” He snarled.
“I-I’m sorry, s-sir…” Another harsh kick to the stomach, he curled up on the floor, trying to protect himself. How many times had he been kicked, punched, slapped now? He couldn’t count. He knew his nose was bleeding, as were the scratches on his chest. He tasted blood in his mouth where he’d bit his tongue, but none of that compared to the pain of the knowledge that Dahlia was trapped here with him, at the mercy of this vampire.
“Stop it!” She shouted, forced into the same cage he’d once been in. “Leave him alone!” Even with a broken wrist she wouldn’t show any pain or fear, and at the moment Silas seriously envied her.
“I don’t want to hear a word from you unless you plan to take his place.” Alastair said with a sneer. A brief moment of silence, and then Dahlia said one word to make his heart stop.
“Alright.” She sounded very calm and sure of herself, she’d just watched what Alastair did to him and yet was still willing to put herself there.
“N-no, Dahlia, Don’t…” he forced himself to sit up despite the pain, looking to Alastair instead. “Please, m-master, please don’t hurt her, I- I’ll take my punishment just please don’t touch h-her.” He begged. Alastair was already ignoring him though. He went and unlocked the cage, immediately grabbing her by her short hair and dragging her out.
“Fuck! That isn’t fucking necessary!” She snapped, trying to get free from him.
“For a lady, you have an incredibly filthy mouth.” The vampire glared at her. Despite the fact that she was being pulled by her hair, she laughed at him.
“Do I? I’m so sorry, did I offend you?!” She laughed. Her laughter, her ability to openly mock this monster after seeing what he was capable of, it almost gave Silas hope. At least, it did until until Alastair yanked her down so she was bent over, harshly kneeing her in the stomach.
Silas could only watch for so long, watching the person he cared for most being beaten until she finally broke, finally screamed. It was the worst pain he could’ve imagined.
“S-stop!” He struggled to get to his feet. “Please, leave her out of this, this doesn’t involve her.”
“It involved her the minute she tried to steal you from me.” He had her on the floor now, and as she started to try and get up he stomped on her injured wrist, causing her to cry out and collapse again.
“I can’t steal him if he doesn’t belong to you!” She snapped, voice strained as she tried to speak through the pain.
“Dahlia, please…” he said softly. “L-let me handle this… please…?” She scowled But didn’t say anything more. He took a deep breath and looked to Alastair. “I… I’ll do anything, just stop hurting her… please? I swear, whatever you want, I’ll do it, I just… I can’t let you hurt her…” Alastair seemed to consider it, before stepping off her hand.
“Typically that would only encourage me to keep going, little hunter.” He approached him, gently grabbing his face. “However, you’ve been keeping something from me, and I allowed you to do that as long as you behaved. I wouldn’t call trying to escape behaving though, would you?”
“N-no sir…” he swallowed nervously, staring into Alastair’s red eyes.
“I thought not… now, I can force it out of you, it isn’t hard to get into that head of yours.” He grinned. “Or, I can let you tell me yourself. Your choice.”
“I-I’ll tell you…” he glanced away from him. “Er… May I kneel…? It's… a lot…” he asked, and Alastair nodded. He sighed in relief, carefully kneeling on the floor so his feet hurt less.
“Thank you, love. Now let’s hear it. Who, or what, caused your strange little habits?”
“There… there were vampires before you… there’s a reason I hunt them…”
And so he went into the story, a story of a childhood spent in a cold, dark room, of a time when all he knew about vampires was that they meant pain and suffering, their assaults breaking up the monotony of his bleak existence. Years spent as a food source, years spent having no choice but to submit to people who could, and gladly would, kill him at any given moment. Years spent being grabbed, pushed, held down, beaten and constantly bitten. It was a miracle he survived to be saved, taken in by hunters with the only person he’d ever had- Dahlia. He left out her involvement, Alastair demanded his story, he didn’t need to know a thing about Dahlia.
“They weren’t… like you… they didn’t play games… and they didn’t give any sort of rewards or comfort…” he reached up, angrily rubbing his eye with the back of his hand. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying, he refused to look at either Alastair or Dahlia. “They never touched me the way you do but… their hands were always, always on me and I can’t stand it…”
Dahlia knew the story, she’d lived it with him. Other people knew bits and pieces, what they could discover or assume for themselves, but he’d never explained it in detail to someone before, much less he forced to. He never wanted to, before all this he’d decided it never happened, he didn’t exist before age 13 and no one needed to know about his life before that.
“I see…” Alastair knelt down, raising a hand and gently wiping a tear away with his thumb. “You’ve been used before… by people who didn’t know how to care for you no less… you were a child, and they hurt you…” Silas nodded slowly, unsure how to respond. “You’re not a child anymore, Silas, and so long as you behave, I won’t hurt you.”
“Y-yes sir…” he murmured. He wasn’t even shocked at this point that Alastair could hear a story like his, yet still decide to hold him here. He stared at his lap, letting tears fall freely.
“Let me see him. Please.” He looked up, Dahlia stood beside Alastair. She looked rough, hair a mess, lip bleeding, holding her swollen wrist close to her chest. “You can do whatever horrible stuff you have planned, but please, let me sit with him for a moment.” Alastair sighed and stood up.
“I will give you two a moment, but understand I’m right outside that door.” He said sternly. He gave them both a look before exiting the room, shutting the door behind him. As soon as that door shut, Silas finally broke down sobbing.
There is a Star Trek episode (Deep Space Nine, s3e21) where it is described how one character, who used to work for the secret police of a totalitarian government, "got a confession" out of a dissident. " You just sat there [- - -] And after four hours of watching you stare at him, he confessed.[- - -] Afterwards, he just kept saying, 'His eyes his eyes.'" (There is a one-minute clip of the scene on youtube entitled “DS9 3x21 - The Die is Cast - The Good Old Times”.) 1/3
Considering other things we see of this culture, it seems likely the victim is restrained and he might well have been beaten or otherwise tortured before the staring described above. Furthermore, there are implications elsewhere that the torturer and the dissident knew each other, possibly very well, before these events. 2/3I’d be interested to hear your take on this, its plausibility and anything that might ‘salvage’ it if it seems very unrealistic. How common is the use of intimidation tactics such as long stretches of silence? What is known of the difference between being tortured by a stranger and by someone you know and possibly trusted? P.S. Thank you for this excellent blog! 3/3
Youknow I think I’ve seen part of this episode.
Fromwhat I can remember there’s a heavy implication throughout that thetorturer-character is an unreliable narrator. Part of that seemed (tome at least) explicitly tied to his role as a torturer.
Andwell, that isrealistic. Torturers are often incredibly unreliable sources when itcomes to both the effectiveness of torture and what they actually didor why something they did was harmful.
Whatthis reminds me of is the way American torturers described usingheavy metal or other Western music against non-Western prisoners.They seemed to consistently put the distress down to the formof music that was being repeatedly played. Rather than the fact itwas constant and at top volume, preventing the prisoners fromsleeping.
Silencecanencourage people to speak but it doesn’t necessarily encourage themtowards confessing or speaking about anything relevant. And I don’tthink staring at someone would have this effect. It’s the ‘HISEYES!’ that underlines the disconnect from reality for me, it justseems so melodramatically implausible if staring was genuinely theonly factor at play here.
It’sone of those strange depictions that can be read as either veryrealistic or hugely unrealistic depending on how much weight you givethe torturer’s account.
Becausethis does seem like a realistic thing fora torturer to claim.But it isn’t a realistic thing to happen.
Whichis another reason why nuance is so important in these stories. We’redealing with unreliable narrators throughout. Torturers, survivorsand even witnesses are all compromised at a neurological level; theirmemories are suspect.
Andtorturers are additionally heavily biased in their accounts. Theytake credit for things that are beyond their control, don’t mentionthings that go against their accounts (sometimes they don’t seem toeven make the connection between them) and bend over backwards tojustify their actions after the fact.
Ican give you an idea of the kind of thing that a torturer mightreport in this way.
Aprisoner is brought in. They’re restrained. They might be beaten.And then they’re ‘sweated’.
Thisis something that used to be common among police forces across quitea few countries. It basically means the victim was tied to a chairwith a bright light shining in their eyes and interrogated for aprolonged period of time. Rooms were usually cramped, so the lightwould make the room unbearably hot. There’s an element of restrainttorture, keeping the victim for a long time in one position. There’ssleep deprivation (because this often went on for over 12 hours).There’s dehydration, because the victim usually wasn’t given foodor water. And they generally weren’t allowed to go to the bathroomeither.
InRussia (and some other countries) they combined this with somethingRejali calls ‘relay interrogation’. Which means they basicallykept switching the torturers. This meant that the torturers wouldalways be pretty well rested but the victim could be kept awake forliterally days at a time.
I’dsuggest that was what happened here.
Ratherthan the victim confessing after ‘four hours’, I’d suggest itwas much more likely he’d been brought in 36-48 hours before andconsistently deprived of water and sleep.
Overthat time frame humans (we shall pretend that aliens work in the sameway) become delirious and often start to hallucinate. Which couldexplain saying something like ‘THE EYES!!!’ It might also explainthe ‘confession’ because in this state some victims aredisconnected from reality to the point that they don’t reallyunderstand they’re confessing.
Torturersare competitive. In a situation like this, with relay interrogation,the firsttorturer gets absolutely no ‘credit’ for a forced confession thathappens five torturers later. All of the ‘credit’, all of thepraise, goes to the last person in the room.
Giventhat there is considerable encouragement for that last torturer toact as though the entire thing was down to them and theirunique/unusual tactics.
Andas torturers are prone to exactlythe same memory problems as survivors,it’s also possible that a torturer in this situation could havegenuinely forgotten that that particular prisoner was brought inseveral days before and had been tortured for that time.
I’venot heard of the use of silence as a tactic by torturers.Intimidation, yes. But it generally seems to come in the form ofthreats.
Howeversilence is commonly used as a tactic by people being interrogated. Atthe very least I know the IRA used this as a consistent organisationwide tactic that members were told to employ if arrested. They wouldturn their back on the interrogators and remain silent. It’sincredibly disquieting and does prompt some people to talk. I thinkthere’s a link to a more detailed discussion of this in the EffectiveInvestigation masterpost.I’m not sure if the Alisons have written any papers on it: their worktends to focus on tactics for interrogators rather than people whoare being interrogated. They’d be a good place to check though.
Fromwhat I know, silence could be an effective tactic in genuineinterrogation but it would have to be part of a broader strategy. Idon’t think it would be effective without the use of other tactics orif it was applied randomly.
Itcould help to get a person to start talking but it couldn’t replacebuilding up a rapport or the ability to steer a conversation to thetopic of interest.
Asfor the last question- I’m afraid I genuinely have no idea. Therereally aren’t enough studies on torturers and the studies I am awareof use a very small sample size. Studies with survivors tend to be alot larger but I’ve never come across a study that talked aboutsurvivors and torturers having a prior relationship of any kind.
Anecdotalaccounts aren’t much better on this front. I’m aware of cases wheresurvivors and torturers came from the same village or small town. I’maware of cases where they knew each other as acquaintances prior tothe victim being tortured. But none of the cases I’m aware ofshowed any indication that the relationship was close. It’s- peoplewho knew each others names, passed on the street, perhapsoccasionally lent the other person a cup of flour. There’s noindication of anything as close as a working or colleaguerelationship in the accounts I’ve seen.
Theaccount Fanon records of a torturer’s daughter who came to him forcounselling doesdescribe a closer relationship with victims. But that’s atorturer’s family member and victims, rather than the torturerhimself.
Becauseit is, by definition, institutional torture doesn’t seem to involvethose sorts of previously strong relationships often.
Nowabusedefinitely does and I suspect that if a prior strong relationshipmakes a difference then you could find that difference by comparingsurvivors of abuse with survivors of torture. Which is a doctoralthesis I’d very much like to see funded but it’s rather beyondthe scope of the blog.
Inthis case I don’t think I’d advise going through anecdotalaccounts and trying to make the comparison yourself. In order forsomething like that to be significant you’ve got to control for alot of factors, which might not be reported in anecdotal accounts andyou need to go through a lotof accounts. I think it would be very easy to leap to an incorrectconclusion, especially when you don’t have direct access to thesurvivors themselves and can’t ask them.
Forthe purposes of the story I’d suggest assuming that there isn’t asymptomatic difference. Assume the symptoms would be the same whetherthe relationship with the torturer was close before or not.
Butadd to that particular issues around relationships and trust.
Thesecan show up as a normal part of the mental illnesses torture causesbut they don’t always. I think tying this kind of… element ofself-isolation and difficulty around personal interaction to thecharacter would add to a story with this kind of relationship.
Accountsfrom survivors of abuse (especially spousal or familial abuse) cangive you an idea how these sorts of difficulties with trust andrelationships manifest. I’d suggest asking @scripttraumasurvivorsfor a source recommendation there though, it’s outside of my area.
Applying the knout was skilled work. The wielder, observed John Perry, applied "so many strokes on the bare back as are appointed by the judges, first making a step back and giving a spring forward at every stroke, which is laid on with such force that the blood flies at every stroke and leaves a weal behind as thick as a man's finger. And these [knout] masters as the Russians call them, are so exact in their work that they very rarely strike two strokes in the same place, but lay them on the whole length and breadth of a man's back, by the side of each other with great dexterity from the top of a man's shoulders down to the waistband of his breeches."
Peter the Great: His Life and World (Robert K. Massie)
Normally, to receive the knout, the victim was lifted and spread across the back of another man, frequently some strong fellow selected by the knoutmaster from among the spectators. The victim's arms were tied over the shoulders of his stationary porter and his legs around the porter's knees. Then, one of the knoutmaster's assistants grabbed the victim by the hair, pulling his head out of the way of the rhythmic strokes of the lash that were falling on the outspread, heaving back.
If desired, the knout could be applied in an even more terrible way. The victim's hands were tied behind his back and a long rope was tied to his wrists and then passed over the branch of a tree or an overhead beam. Pulling down on the rope meant hoisting the victim into the air with his arms revolving backward the wrong way in their shoulder sockets. To make sure that the arms were pulled completely out of joint, a heavy log or other weight was sometimes tied to the victim's feet. With the victim already in agony, the knoutmaster then flailed the distended back with the designated number of strokes, whereupon the victim was lowered to the ground and his arms were wrenched back into joint again. In some cases, this torture would be repeated on a weekly basis until the victim confessed.
Attempting to force a confession may be one of the most common uses of torture today. Several countries, both autocratic and democratic, have police forces that do this fairly regularly.
First a little background on how torture in a judicial setting works.
Torture can be used to force confessions, but it might well surprise you how often it doesn’t work. Anecdotal accounts tend to suggest or assume that sooner or later everyone confesses because of physical torture. However statistical analysis of the little data we have suggests that is no where near true.
The main piece of data comes from France between 1500 and the mid 1700s, concerning 785 people who were put to torture, in accordance with French law at the time, to make them confess. Only between 3 and 14% of them did.
Similarly of the 3,573 German prisoners in the infamous ‘London Cage’ around 1,000 confessed, and it is worth noting that bribery, incentives for double agents and threats were as much a part of the London Cage as torture.
Forced confessions have been used to get rid of politically inconvenient people but it’s also regularly used to disguise failings in particular police forces. When judges and juries prize confessions, police are underfunded, poorly trained and under pressure to produce results now coercion and torture can very quickly become common practice.
The Wickersham Commission in the United States identified police brutality and torture across the country, often for the purpose of extracting confessions. In particular a pattern of practices known as ‘sweating’ was widespread.
Bright lights were kept aimed at the suspects eyes, they were prevented from sleeping, kept uncomfortably hot by the lights and interrogated constantly by relays of people over several days. If that sounds familiar it’s because it’s practically identical to Soviet ‘Conveyer’ techniques.
The Communist ‘brainwashing’ that Americans were told to fear was the same thing that had been going on in American prisons for decades.
Police in Chicago have a history of torture stretching back to at least the 1920s when the Wickersham Commission said they used sleep deprivation, beatings (famously with the Chicago telephone book), exhaustion exercises, stress positions, tear gas, suffocation and something that sounds an awful lot like waterboarding.
By the 70s they’d moved on to electrical torture though beating (with phone books and rubber hoses) was still common as was suffocation (now using plastic bags).
And in the 80s Chicago’s area 2 was under the jurisdiction of Commander Jon Burge a man who is estimated to have tortured at least 200 people. They were variously sweated, beaten, suffocated and tortured using the electric charge of telephone magnetos to extract confessions.
Burge’s police career started in 1972 and the first accusations of torture came soon afterwards. Burge’s actions, over a two decade career, have led to a review of the police force costing $17 million, a settlement costing almost $20 million, a compensation fund for victims of police torture of over $62 million and a further $50 million for ‘defence of officers’.
The overall estimate for the monetary cost to Chicago’s police force is almost $400 million.
At least 17 innocent people were put on death row based on confessions obtained by torture.
With the cost, monetary, moral and human, so high the obvious question is how did this go on for so long?
Burge was a veteran who’d received three medals in Vietnam. He received multiple commendations as a police officer and by the time he was suspended in 1991 (before being fired in 1993) he was an Area commander, outranking the vast majority of police in the city.
Burge was seen as upstanding and believable.
One of the most important victims in the cases against him was a young black man named Andrew Wilson. Wilson had spent most of his life in institutions and a significant period of time homeless. He was described as impulsive and emotional and ‘his ability to function in the community [was] severely limited’. (via Rejali, pg 241)
The police accused him of murdering two of their fellow officers.
Wilson described a pattern of electrical torture via magneto, suffocation and beatings that matched the testimony of other complaints. He was admitted to hospital with second degree burns and multiple lacerations.
Juries did not believe him. In fact they returned the bizarre verdict that police had used excessive force but not torture, a contradiction in terms.
It took years of concerted effort from journalists, activists and victims to finally bring Burge to justice. He was finally arrested in 2008 and convicted in 2011.
His sentence was just four and a half years. Burge was released in 2014. Many of his victims died in prison.
Several of the officers he trained have been promoted to high positions. At the time of writing the city of Chicago can not consider an officer’s prior record of complaints when investigating allegations of brutality.
Convictions for torture rely on establishing patterns of behaviour over time and multiple victims. It’s pretty safe to say that with a rule like that in place Burge would never have been convicted. It’s a simple pattern, sleep deprivation, beatings, suffocation, electricity.
And I’m told that those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it.
[Sources: ‘Torture and Democracy’, Princeton, D Rejali (Glorious 850 page, kill them with data, monster of a book)
I have a story where religion is a Big Deal. One of my characters is captured and tortured for a confession to witchcraft (which he's guilty of), with the understanding that he'll be executed on a fixed date that could be stopped with a confession (because confessions don't get killed). If there was a 'preacher' who shows up to remind him that he doesn't get proper burial/death rites if he's executed (which leads to zombies, ghosts, bad things). How effective would this be, do you think? Thanks!
I’m notentirely sure what you want this scenario to be effect for Anon so I’m going togive you my general thoughts on the set up and if you have any furtherquestions don’t hesitate to ask.
Correctme if I’ve got this wrong- The character practices witchcraft, he’s arrestedand the authorities are trying to torture a confession out of him. If he doesn’tconfess they’ll kill him. There’s a religious authority figure there to remindhim that there’s a big social pressure supporting confession.
ThePreacher character is probably going to provide a pretty big incentive toconfess. Perhaps more so than the torture itself.
Insocieties like Japan which prize confessions and put this sort of socialpressure on suspects the rate of confession is very high indeed. And a lot of those confessions are false. Thepeople confessing generally seem to think they wouldn’t be able to defendthemselves well in court, even though they’re innocent. They know that theywill lose social prestige by being charged with a crime and being found guilty,but confessing and apologising mitigates that. [D Rejali, ‘Torture and Democracy’chapter 1]
If thePreacher is clever and persuasive he should be capable of getting the characterto confess without the torturers becoming involved.
Rates offalse confession from torture are a lotlower than most people think. The most reliable statistics from torturealone come from France, circa 1500-1750 and they put the confession rate at10%. The ‘London Cage’ had a much higher false confession rate of around 30%but the prisoners there were not justtortured. They were also subject to a lot of social and psychological pressure,bribed, wiretapped and implicated each other.
Whetheryour character confesses or not is ultimately more dependent on your characterthan the torturers. Torture victims often report being surprised by their own paintolerance and that torture made them more determined not to give in to theircaptor’s demands.
The factthat your character will die if he doesn’t confess would probably be enough ofan incentive for most people to confess without torture, especially in thepresence of a ‘Preacher’. But I gotta admit I don’t understand that aspect ofthis set up. Why kill him if he doesn’t confess? Surely it makes more sense tokill him if he does confess to acrime then to kill him just for being accusedof a crime?
UnlessI’ve misunderstood the situation that means the authorities in your settinghave a license to kill whoever they like, whenever they like. It means thatthere are probably a lot of false accusations of witchcraft flying aroundbecause anyone can use it to get ridof someone they don’t like.
That sortof system very quickly leads to laws being used to settle personal scores and,from the sounds of it, the legal system already means that violent purges are aregular occurrence.
Generally-I think this is a scenario where most characters would confess, whether theconfession was true or false. Unless the character is a staunch believer inwitchcraft and really hates the legalauthorities he’s probably going to confess easily because he’s not compromisinghis principals or betraying anyone and he has a lot of incentive to confess.
It mightinterest you to know that sleep deprivation was pioneered as a torturetechnique specifically for witch trials (in Scotland if you’re interested).This is because it causes hallucinations, which were then recorded as evidenceof witchcraft.
You mightalso want to look up West African and Caribbean religions before you usezombies in your stories. Deren’s ‘Divine Horsemen’ is a pretty good place tostart even though it doesn’t contain any specific references to zombies.
