Friday, July 04, 2008

The Limits of Torture

One of the "rules" regarding the treatment of prisoners is that they need to be offered "appropriate food". What does that mean?

Arin Greenwood's story on "nutraloaf" offers an interesting take on the more etiolated dimensions of 8th Amendment jurisprudence:

Inmates hoping for relief from the courts for their Nutraloaf punishments aren't likely to get it from the courts. . . .A lawyer who works in asylum law . . . said the loaves would have to be extremely bad. . . . Courts have nearly all found that prison food can be unappetizing, cold, and even contain foreign objects, and still not be unconstitutional.

The topic offers whole new vistas for torture advocates to contemplate as they interrogate prisoners.

Foreign objects could easily make food non-kosher. They'd probably make it non-halal. Does that make it torture? Does that make torture constitutional?

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