Indiana University law professor available to comment on torture report
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 19, 2008
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights has released a report concluding that former terrorist suspects detained by the U.S. were tortured. The following Indiana University School of Law--Bloomington faculty member is available for comment.
Does Torture Even Work?
According to Professor Jeannine Bell, there is little evidence that torture actually leads to the evidence that its supporters claim. "A variety of sources, including interviews with interrogators who have actually used torture, suggest that it has a host of problems when it comes to securing reliable information," Bell said. "If an interrogator's objective is truly to secure information with a significant degree of accuracy, they should turn to lower cost and more credible methods of acquiring intelligence."
Bell is a professor of law and the Charles Whistler Faculty Fellow. She is the author of Behind This Mortal Bone: The (In)effectiveness of Torture, published in the Indiana Law Journal. Bell has served a trustee of the Law and Society Association and as a member of the American Political Association's Presidential Taskforce on Political Violence and Terrorism.
She can be reached at 812-856-5013 or jeabell@indiana.edu.
