Of ethically compromising positions and blatant lies about ′truth serum′

Abstract

Byline: A. Kala When I was eleven years old, I went along with a friend to convey a message to his uncle who worked in a police station. In the courtyard, police were beating a hard-core pickpocket who already had enough beating marks on his body. A very old and thin looking policeman who was going off duty, stopped on seeing this, went to the senior in the beating team and requested with folded hands, Huzoor, if you permit, can I also give him a slap? Permission was given with a nod and the slap delivered. I remembered the incident some months back while watching news on TV, which was showing narcoanalysis being performed on scamster Telgi. The man was lying down, semi-sedated, mumbling some words when prodded by light slaps on the cheeks by the psychologist who was holding a questionnaire. There were other people around, all in white coats. The TV clip itself went on for 20 minutes. The whole procedure must have lasted much longer. The mental health professional in the interrogating team reminded me of the old policeman. Both had no logical or scientific reason to do what they did. And it was certainly unethical to make it degrading by doing it on television. Remember, even if Saddam's death sentence was right, his death video was not and it shocked the conscience of the world. Sometimes, when you talk of ethics in such contexts, the question is asked, Did he think of ethics while killing innocent people? Answer to that is, that this is the difference between him and the civilized society. Sir James Stephen stated in 1883, referring to a practice of police officers in India, is far pleasanter to sit comfortably in the shade red pepper into a poor devil's eyes than to go about in the sun hunting up evidence.[sup] [1] Police have been plagued with a serious and long-standing image problem and have been constantly exhorted by everybody to be more scientific in their interrogation. They seem to have taken this too literally and have come up with this magical way to find truth, which, with its paraphernalia of syringes, drugs and white coats looks every bit scientific. In their over-enthusiasm, they forgot to verify reliability and scientific validity of the method, having been apparently overawed by its name 'truth serum'. Had they enquired, they would have found that it often gives wrong and misleading results and on ethical grounds it is as slippery as, well, rubbing red pepper into poor devil's eyes. While police seem to have a reason to be doing it, why are mental health professionals, who should know better, conniving? The answer, I suspect is, narcissism. Internationally, interest of security agencies in narcoanalysis is quite old, but not sustained. Scientific evidence against it as a method to reach truth has been consistent. It has had a somewhat better lease as a method to treat neurotic patients by exploiting their suggestibility and as a method of emotional catharsis. The suggestibility gets heightened under the effect of sodium pentothal but this can lead to false results when the method is used for detection of objective truth. While in neurotics, it is the perceived truth, which is important from patients' point of view even if it is objectively false, in a criminal investigation it can give wrong and confusing results. Even in neurotic patients, the method ceased to be used in the seventies because of lack of evidence that it was useful. Inbau,[sup] [2] the then professor of law at Northwestern University who had had considerable experience in observing or participating in 'truth serum' tests, is of the opinion that such tests are occasionally effective on persons who, if they had been properly interrogated, would have disclosed the truth anyway. The person who is determined to lie will usually be able to continue the deception even under the effects of the drug. On the other hand, the person who is likely to confess will probably do so as the result of skillful police interrogation and it will not be necessary to use drugs. …