Dehumanization is Not an Option: an Inquiry into the Exercise of Authority Against Perceived Wrongdoers

Reports about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Base, secret CIA prisons, and other detention facilities run by the U. S. outside the country, have raised concerns about the treatment of prisoners in those facilities. Yet their treatment is different only by degree from the treatment of people jailed and imprisoned in the U. S. and other countries. And there is certainly nothing new about the physical and psychological mistreatment of imprisoned people. Brutalization of suspected wrongdoers was elevated to an art form during the middle ages in Europe, and there are credible stories of atrocious treatment of prisoners going back thousands of years. Awareness that the mistreatment of people considered by society to be wrongdoers is pervasive and not the consequence of a few "bad apples," is a necessary first step to exploring options to break that millenium long cycle of violence. Dehumanization Is Not An Option contributes to increasing that awareness.