# Is it ok to cause great pain, as long as there is no visible injury? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 11, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-cause-great-pain-as-long-as-there-is-no-visible-injury/496070 "2009-05-11T18:48:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-cause-great-pain-as-long-as-there-is-no-visible-injury/496070/21 "2009-05-12T05:13:00Z")
[quote=“Alan\_Smithee, post:20, topic:496070”] I think that tasering to force compliance is wrong. I think it needs to be distinguished from tasering to incapacitate, however, which I think is acceptable. No one should be tased and then given an order to follow with the threat of further tasing to back it up, they should be tased only as a means of bringing them down and making it possible for police to physically restrain a person. [QUOTE] +1. The only problem I have is that after watching the Naked Wizard video, tasering doesn’t seem to incapcitate long enough to restrain. As soon as the trigger is released the resister seems to continue struggling, which brings it back to compliance through pain. Although I do note that the taser does do an admirable job of stopping an agressive advance, or dropping someone that is trying to escape, so these would be valid uses. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-cause-great-pain-as-long-as-there-is-no-visible-injury/496070/22 "2009-05-12T13:27:16Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Arguing about possible numbers of deaths via different forms of inflicted pain is not what this thread is about. I’m not interested in deciding that waterboarding is worse than tasing, or vice versa. If you wanted a simple poll with out posters providing a construction to frame their reasoning for their opinion, you should have put the question to IMHO. But then you say > [@](#): > > What I am interested in hearing is people’s views on tasing, and whether the infliction of great, severe and excruciating pain is acceptable in order for a peace officer to gain compliance from a subject. > > **And then I want to know why they think it is, or is not, acceptable**. -bolding mine So you do want some argument for the opinion after all 😕 > [@](#): > > If you would like to debate the merits and demerits of various tortures, please start a thread to discuss that. It is quite reasonable to draw on the opinion of the merits of waterboarding as a baseline in order to draw a conclusion on the merits of tasering. The case for waterboarding has been well discussed with an overwhelming majority of posters against it with no reservation. Simply, if you are against waterboarding it should follow that you are against tasering. Keep in mind that your specific questions made no reference at all to tasering. In fact, as I pointed out, given your question as follows , > [@](#): > > 1. Do you think that the infliction of pain, without causing injury, is ok for police or other law enforcement to use as a compliance tool? I’d have to say that the specification “without causing injury” eliminates tasering yet still allows for waterboarding. After all, the huge number of deaths from tasering contradicts your assumption of no injury. Given that the I am opposed to waterboarding (which has not been established as causing physical injury despite the unfounded claim of **RNATB** I can only draw the reasonable conclusion that I must be against tasering. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-cause-great-pain-as-long-as-there-is-no-visible-injury/496070/23 "2009-05-12T14:10:52Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > 1. Do you think that the infliction of pain, without causing injury, is ok for police or other law enforcement to use as a compliance tool? Yes, with the caveat that it is impossible to inflict pain without incurring some risk of injury or death. (See also what **Clothahump** says about the difficulties in using pain compliance on a general population). Come-along holds always involve the risk of breaking the joint. Etc. - this can’t be avoided. > [@](#): > > 1. If you answered YES to #1, should there be limits to how much pain can be inflicted in an attempt to gain compliance? How would this be measured and/or monitored? How would transgressions be discovered? Same way as they are now. ISTM that pain _per se_ isn’t the issue - damage is. The naked fruitcake in the video mentioned wasn’t damaged by being Taser’ed, and the purpose wasn’t so much to get him to comply as to immobilize him. If you could come up with a magic device like the Agonizer in the Star Trek “Mirror Mirror” episode that hurt but caused no damage, then use of such a device for compliance (not punishment, compliance) would be preferable to Tasers, and even more so to batons and Mace. Because it would be less damaging. But minimum pain should be inflicted as a general rule of thumb. There is no sense in zapping someone routinely, even if they don’t respond instantly to a verbal command to submit to handcuffing. But non-damaging pain is preferable to damaging pain - thus a come-along hold is better than a gun, and so forth. One of the reasons Rodney King was beaten was that Tasers didn’t work on him, and sleeper holds were illegal under California law. So the police didn’t have many options between Tasers and a beat-down. Not that sleeper holds are guaranteed, but the point is that even the best-intentioned policies can have unfortunate consequences. You outlaw choke holds because some people have died after being subdued, and allow only Tasers and batons (and guns). Then Tasers are considered too brutal, because they cause pain. The police still have to subdue people - what are their choices? If you eliminate Tasers, and he doesn’t respond to voice commands… It is very difficult to subdue someone without hurting them - more difficult than most people realize. In the movies, the bad guy gets paid to fall down. In the street, it is never that neat. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-cause-great-pain-as-long-as-there-is-no-visible-injury/496070/24 "2009-05-12T14:41:33Z")
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman] After all, the huge number of deaths from tasering contradicts your assumption of no injury. [/QUOTE] Clearly you and I are working on a different definition of the word ‘huge’ here. -XT ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-cause-great-pain-as-long-as-there-is-no-visible-injury/496070/25 "2009-05-12T15:07:20Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > 1. Do you think that the infliction of pain, without causing injury, is ok for police or other law enforcement to use as a compliance tool? Yes. > [@](#): > > 1. If you answered YES to #1, should there be limits to how much pain can be inflicted in an attempt to gain compliance? How would this be measured and/or monitored? How would transgressions be discovered? As far as i know pain is not “measurable”, also it is never 100% safe. The only way to do this is to have officers well trained in the use of the tasers, which i am still strongly convinced are a much better option than nightsticks or pepper spray (i’d go with pepper spray if it wasn’t so easy for innocent bystanders to suffer from it when sprayed in an area, at least with a taser you are not going to be shocking random people). It should be monitored the same way any other police procedure is and transgressions discovered the same way any other types of police abuse is discovered. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2009, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-cause-great-pain-as-long-as-there-is-no-visible-injury/496070/26 "2009-05-12T16:26:27Z")
1. Do you think that the infliction of pain, without causing injury, is ok for police or other law enforcement to use as a compliance tool? **No** 1. If you answered NO to #1, what do you think police should do to gain compliance from non-cooperative persons? How would this be monitored? How would transgressions be discovered? I’d prefer a non-painful restraint method. Knock-out gas, webbing shots or something like that. It should be monitored the same way cops’ guns should be - keep track of usage, _every_ instance of usage causes automatic suspension of right-to-carry until investigated. Proper arsenal inventory should lead to discovery of transgressions. Come down hard on transgressors. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-ok-to-cause-great-pain-as-long-as-there-is-no-visible-injury/496070.md?page=1)