Are the American Psychological Association’s Detainee Interrogation Policies Ethical and Effective?
ANGLO AMERICA, 28 Nov 2011
Farid Zakaria, PBFC – TRANSCEND Media Service
A new article by Kenneth Pope, distinguished clinical psychologist and former chair of the American Psychological Association (APA) Ethics Committee, sharply criticizes the APA’s current policy on detainee interrogation.
The APA is the largest organization of psychologists in the world with more than 148,000 members. Its history goes back more than one hundred years. Pope resigned from the APA in 2008 because of the changes in the organization’s ethical stance after 9/11. Those changes, he writes, “moved APA from its ethical foundation, historic traditions, and basic values.”
In the wake of 9/11, the APA played an important role in the interrogation of detainees at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, the Detention Center at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Official US policy has been to use psychologists (and not psychiatrists) in the interrogation of detainees. The APA routinely collaborates with US civilian and military authorities on detainee interrogation. In a statement to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the organization declared that “psychologists have important contributions to make in eliciting information that can be used to prevent violence and protect our national security.”
To develop its interrogation policy, the APA created the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS Task Force). When PENS Task Force produced its report in 2005, the APA Board of Directors declared a state of emergency and voted to approve the report as official APA ethics policy. Consequently, the report was not subjected to the rigorous review it would have received from the APA’s Council of Representatives under normal circumstances. Amazingly, a press release and a statement by the APA president declared that the policy had been approved by the APA Council of Representatives when in fact the report was never submitted to the Council for approval.
Under this policy, the APA contended that psychologists were “in a unique position to assist in ensuring that processes are safe, legal, ethical, and effective for all participants.” In reality, psychologists took an active role in developing more aggressive interrogation techniques against terrorism suspects such as snarling dogs, forced nudity, and long periods of standing.
The article points out that psychologists supported illegal interrogation techniques in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay were tortured with the assistance of psychologists. The CIA consulted with outside psychologists who gave assurances that controversial procedures, including waterboarding, would not result in prolonged mental harm.
In 2002 and for the first time in its history, the APA took a stand contrary to the Nuremberg Ethic. The latter principle rejects the argument that an individual should not be held responsible for a crime simply because the individual was following orders or the law. Mr. Pope notes that this clearly communicated a shift in the APA’s values to the profession, policy makers, and the public. The APA did not reverse its opposition to the Nuremberg Ethic until 2010.
To this day, the APA has refused to add any provision concerning torture to the 89 enforceable standards in the Ethics Code.
Pope questions the validity and appropriateness of the APA’s ethical policies as developed by the PENS Task Force given that they faced no meaningful review. “Were the PENS policies APA’s only viable option,” Mr. Pope asks, “or were other options available that would address interrogation issues more directly, actively, and comprehensively; that were more ethically sound and scientifically based?”
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