Torture, the infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering for a purpose, such as extracting information, coercing a confession, or inflicting punishment. It is normally committed by a public official or other person exercising comparable power and authority. Although the effectiveness of torture has been defended by many throughout history, notably Aristotle and Sir Francis Bacon, it was attacked as early as Roman times for encouraging its victims to lie.
.jpg)
Inmate at Dartmoor Prison in England being forced to crank a handle several thousand times per day, 1884.
In ancient Greece and Rome, physical torture was lawfully used, usually on noncitizens or slaves, as a means of obtaining information or confessions. Later, in early medieval Europe, torture was used as the trial itself in the ordeal, wherein the suspect’s response to extreme physical pain served as the basis for establishing guilt or innocence. In the later Middle Ages, torture was again used to secure confessions in cases of serious crime (confession was known by the term “the queen of proofs”), though it was nominally subject to strict conditions.
The rationale for torture, which was subject throughout the centuries to enlightened challenge, was that it was a necessary means of averting grave miscarriages of justice, the consequences of which would be irreversible.
Yet the introduction of penalties that could be revoked, such as imprisonment and exile, and the development of law enforcement as a profession made this case unsustainable. For example, Scotland abolished torture in 1708, France did so in 1798, and other countries followed suit, so that by the beginning of the 19th century the practice of torture had been officially abandoned in much of Europe. Thereafter any violence toward a criminal suspect constituted a crime (usually of assault, battery, and injury).
The trend reflected many influences, including that of Enlightenment thought, especially as expressed by the criminologist and philosopher Cesare Beccaria. Most other countries—including those that remained under colonial domination and were subject to the legal systems imposed by their colonial masters—had rejected torture as a lawful means of investigation, trial, or punishment long before the 20th century.