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"If you talk to people who have been tortured, that gives you a pretty good idea not only as to what it does to them, but what it does to the people who do it. One of my main objections to torture is what it does to the guys who actually inflict the torture. It does bad things. I have talked to a bunch of people who had been tortured who, when they talked to me, would tell me things they had not told their torturers, and I would ask, 'Why didn't you tell that to the guys who were torturing you?' They said that their torturers got so involved that they didn't even bother to ask questions. [...] Torture becomes an end unto itself." -- Merle L. Pribbenow, former CIA interpreter who served in the Vietnam War, as quoted in "CIA Veterans Condemn Torture", by Jason Vest, National Journal, 2005-11-19
(no subject)
I've long advocated retraining and therapy Rather than warehousing and suffering in prisons for the same reason. You are far more likely to get a helpful result with the person you are 'working over', And you do far less damage to those who have to work the system. Even if it does NO good to the erstwhile 'incarceree', you do less damage to society as a whole and engender better ~karma for everyone. Not to mention cutting re-offending by a Lot.