(University of Michigan Press) In Understanding Torture, the author argues that prohibiting torture will not end it. He claims that creating a separate category for the narrow set of practices labeled and banned as torture will only normalize and legitimize similar practices that are “not torture”: police violence in U.S. cities, violent repression of racial minorities throughout U.S. history, the exercise of power in various political, social, and interpersonal contacts. He argues that torture, the domination of a victim for any number of purposes (including public order or control of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities), is already a normal part of the state coercive apparatus. Ultimately, he questions the hope that law can have an important role in regulating state violence. Parry is a professor of law at Lewis & Clark Law School.
