Informal institutions and the establishment of torture

• In Event: Empirical Contributions to the Study of Torture

Abstract

Most recent research on legal establishment of torture through informal institutions has concentrated on its appearance as a national policy. What has not been as extensively examined, however: is the metastasizing of the use of torture, again justified by informal institutions, to domestic law enforcement agencies. This paper will present a beginning study of this phenomena. I will suggest a model for how informal institutions allowing the appearance of torture can become established and an hypothesis derived from it. I will then use process tracing of the case of torture within the Chicago Police Department to provide a preliminary test of the model. I will conclude with a discussion of what has been learned and some speculations on how the use of torture by domestic law enforcement agencies might be prevented.

Author

• Tracy L. R. Lightcap, LaGrange College