In the past three decades, international and regional human rights bodies have developed an ever-lengthening list of measures that states are required to adopt in order to prevent torture. But do any of these mechanisms actually work? This study is the first systematic analysis of the effectiveness of torture prevention. Primary research was conducted in 16 countries, looking at their experience of torture and prevention mechanisms over a 30-year period. Data was analysed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques. Prevention measures do work, although some are much more effective than others. Most important of all are the safeguards that should be applied in the first hours and days after a person is taken into custody. Notification of family and access to an independent lawyer and doctor have a significant impact in reducing torture. The investigation and prosecution of torturers and the creation of independent monitoring bodies are also important in reducing torture. An important caveat to the conclusion that prevention works is that is actual practice in police stations and detention centres that matters - not treaties ratified or laws on the statute book.

Moving past theoretical critiques of human rights, this book considers how we might translate situational analyses of torture into effective strategies for preventing it.

The first systematic analysis of the effectiveness of torture prevention.

"Published with the support of Austrian Science Fund (FWF): PUB 644-G."

This landmark practical guide assists all those involved in monitoring detention conditions and investigating and preventing torture. The prestigious global author team identify the medical, legal and professional frameworks and international instruments applicable to those detained, and highlight how torture or other cruel and inhuman degrading treatments or punishments are identified, investigated and should be prevented. · A comprehensive and wide range of detention settings and circumstances are covered including police stations, prisons, mental health, and social care civil conditions to prisoner of war, detention camps, military, and armed conflict. · Advice, monitoring, and assessment is given for special groups, including the custody of women, children, vulnerable adults, and individuals on hunger strike · Practical guidelines are given for the assessment of ill-treatment of individuals in custody including sexual abuse · Online links to the latest legal, ethical, and medical guidelines for key countries help to make this book appropriate for all. Challenging, thought-provoking yet thoroughly practical, this book is essential reading for anyone involved in the monitoring of detention conditions and the treatment and investigation of individuals in any form of custody. The content is aimed primarily at healthcare professionals but it also highly relevant for anyone who may form part of a visiting team, including lay individuals, lawyers and law enforcement professionals, as well as for academics.

There is an urgent need to analyze and assess how we prevent torture, against the background of a rigorous analysis of the factors that condition and sustain it. Drawing on rich empirical material from Sri Lanka and Nepal, The Prevention of Torture: An Ecological Approach interrogates the worlds that produce torture in order to propose how to bring about systemic institutional and cultural change. Critics have decried human rights approaches' failure to attend to structural factors, but this book seeks to go beyond a 'stance of criticism' to take up the positive project of reimagining human rights theory and practice. It discusses key debates in human rights and political theory, as well as the challenges that advocates face in translating situational analyses into real world interventions. Danielle Celermajer develops a new, ecological framework for mapping the worlds that produce torture, and thereby develops prevention strategies.