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Full-Text Articles in Law
Should Sociologists Stand Up For Science? Absolutely!, Janet M. Ruane
Should Sociologists Stand Up For Science? Absolutely!, Janet M. Ruane
Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works
Standing up for science is part of sociology's mission as a social science. Standing up is also consistent with our field's ethical obligation to identify and avoid research compromised by conflict of interests.
Deterring Torture: The Preventive Power Of Criminal Law And Its Promise For Inhibiting State Abuses, Francesca Laguardia
Deterring Torture: The Preventive Power Of Criminal Law And Its Promise For Inhibiting State Abuses, Francesca Laguardia
Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works
The use of torture in the War on Terror reinvigorated a longstanding debate about how to prevent such human rights violations, and whether they should be criminalized. Using US history as a case study, this article argues that the criminal sanction is likely to be more successful in preventing such abuses than many other often suggested methods. Analyzing thousands of pages of released government documents as an archive leads to the counterintuitive finding that torturers were often deterred, at least momentarily, by fear of criminal liability, and would have been successfully deterred if not for the lack of prior prosecutions.