Sleep deprivation does not work: Epidemiology, impacts and outcomes of incidental and systematic sleep deprivation in a sample of Palestinian detainees

Autores/as

  • Mahmud Sehwail Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (TRC)
  • Pau Pérez-Sales SiR[a] Center
  • Khader M.A Rasras Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (TRC)
  • Wisam Sehwail Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (TRC)
  • Alba Guasch Community Action Group (GAC)
  • Andrea Galan Community Action Group (GAC) & SiR[a] Center

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/torture.v29i2.115381

Palabras clave:

torture, sleep deprivation, detention facilities

Resumen

Background: Sleep deprivation (SD) is a method used in the context of interrogations aimed to obtain submission, information and confessions. Its impact on producing false confessions has been documented. Even information obtained is true, it will be unreliable as it cannot be separated with what has been suggested by interrogators. The use of SD has been documented in the interrogation of detainees in Israel and two patterns can be identified: one incidental due to the conditions of detention set out here as secondary sleep deprivation (SSD), and one systematic, intentional and linked to continued interrogation, set out here as primary sleep deprivation (PSD). This paper aims to study the prevalence of PSD and SSD in a sample of Palestinian detainees, compare its usage before and after the 1999 Israeli Supreme Court judgment, and compare the impacts and outcomes of SD. Method: The study included a sample of 600 ex-detainees who answered questions related to psychological and coercive methods, subjective psychological impact, clinical measures, psychosocial measures, and medical impact. Classification of SD was built taking into consideration the items related to SD and interrogation. Results: Most detainees reported SSD with around 13% reporting PSD. Prevalence of PSD has been found larger among people over 25 years old who were detained before 1999. Related to the psychological suffering from the overall detention environment including SD, detainees with PSD and SSD reported significantly higher acute and chronic suffering. It has also been found that detainees with PSD reported long term family, social and physical impacts. Regarding the outcome of SD, the number of signed confessions with either true or false statements increases with SD, but in this case, this did not lead neither to a significantly higher number of convictions nor longer sentences. Conclusion: Sleep deprivation in the framework of interrogations seems ineffective.

Citas

Addameer. (2013). Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons. Retrieved from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/dplc/dv/palestinianpoliticalprisoners/ palestinianpoliticalprisonersen.pdf

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights. (2014). Torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment: the Palestinian population, the Gaza Strip and Israeli Authorities. Retrieved from https://www.mezan.org/en/uploads/files/14519781991754.pdf.

Barnes, C. M., Gunia, B. C., & Wagner, D. T. (2015). Sleep and moral awareness. Journal of Sleep Research, 24(2), 181–188. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12231

Blagrove, M., & Akehurst, L. (2000). Effects of sleep loss on confidence–accuracy relationships for reasoning and eyewitness memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 6(1), 59–73. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-898X.6.1.59

Denemark, D. (2009). Trust , Threat and Opposition to Anti-terrorism Police Powers : Australia in Comparative Perspective. (July 2009), 12–16.

Feng, P., Becker, B., Zheng, Y., & Feng, T. (2018). Sleep deprivation affects fear memory consolidation: Bi-stable amygdala connectivity with insula and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 13(2), 145–155. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsx148

Ginbar, Y. (2009). Celebrating ’ a Decade of Legalised Torture in Israel. Essex Human Rights Review, 6, 169–187.

Gronke, P., Rejali, D., Drenguis, D., Hicks, J., Miller, P., & Nakayama, B. (2010). U.S. Public Opinion on Torture, 2001–2009. PS: Political Science & Politics, 43(03), 437–444. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096510000697

Havekes, R., & Abel, T. (2017). The tired hippocampus: the molecular impact of sleep deprivation on hippocampal function. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 44(March), 13–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2017.02.005

Hirshkowitz, M., Whiton, K., Albert, S. M., Alessi, C., Bruni, O., DonCarlos, L., … Adams Hillard, P. J. (2015). National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health, 1(1), 40–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2014.12.010

Homant, R. J., Witkowski, M. J., & Howell, M. (2008). Is Torture Ever Justified? College Students' Attitudes Towards Coercion/Torture. The Journal of the Institute of Justice & International Studies, 8, 152–165.

Kadman, N. (2015). Backed by the System : Abuse and Torture at the Shikma Interrogation Facility. B’Tselem & HaMoked Center. Retrieved from https://www.btselem.org/sites/default/files2/201512_backed_by_the_system_eng.pdf

Killgore, W. D. S. (2010). Effects of sleep deprivation on cognition. In Progress in Brain Research (Vol. 185). https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-53702-7.00007-5

Killgore, W. D. S., Balkin, T. J., Yarnell, A. M., & Capaldi, V. F. (2017). Sleep deprivation impairs recognition of specific emotions. Neurobiology of Sleep and Circadian Rhythms, 3(February), 10–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nbscr.2017.01.001

Killgore, W. D. S., Killgore, D. B., Day, L. M., Li, C., Kamimori, G. H., & Balkin, T. J. (2007). The effects of 53 hours of sleep deprivation on moral judgment. Sleep, 30(3), 345–352. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/30.3.345

Lim, J., & Dinges, D. F. (2010). A meta-analysis of the impact of short-term sleep deprivation on cognitive variables. Psychological Bulletin, 136(3), 375–389. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018883

McKenna, B. S., Dickinson, D. L., & Orff, H. J. (2007). The effects of one night of sleep deprivation on known-risk and ambiguous-risk decisions. J Sleep Research, 16, 245–252.

MIFTAH. (2012). Palestinian Prisoners. Fact Sheet. (Vol. 1229).

Miller, P. (2011). Torture Approval in Comparative Perspective. Human Rights Review, 12(4), 441–463. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-011-0190-2

Nowak, M. (2006). What Practices Constitute Torture? US and UN Standards. Human Rights Quarterly, 28(4) https://doi.org/10.1353/hrq.2006.0050

Ohayon, M. M., Carskadon, M. A., Guilleminault, C., & Vitiello, M. V. (2004). Meta-analysis of quantitative sleep parameters from childhood to old age in healthy individuals: developing normative sleep values across the human lifespan. Sleep, 27(7), 1255–1273. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15586779

Pérez-Sales, P. (2017). Psychological torture: Definition, evaluation and measurement. In Psychological Torture: Definition, Evaluation and Measurement. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315616940

Reynolds, A. C., & Banks, S. (2010). Total sleep deprivation, chronic sleep restriction and sleep disruption. In Progress in Brain Research, 185. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-53702-7.00006-3

Schrimpf, M., Liegl, G., Boeckle, M., Leitner, A., Geisler, P., & Pieh, C. (2015). The effect of sleep deprivation on pain perception in healthy subjects: A meta-analysis. Sleep Medicine, 16(11), 1313–1320. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2015.07.022

Tempesta, D., Couyoumdjian, A., Curcio, G., Moroni, F., Marzano, C., De Gennaro, L., & Ferrara, M. (2010). Lack of sleep affects the evaluation of emotional stimuli. Brain Research Bulletin, 82(1–2), 104–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainresbull.2010.01.014

Tempesta, D., Couyoumdjian, A., Moroni, F., Marzano, C., De Gennaro, L., & Ferrara, M. (2012). The impact of one night of sleep deprivation on moral judgments. Social Neuroscience, 7(3), 292–300. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2011.614002

Thomas, N. K. (2011). On turning a blind eye and a deaf ear: society’s response to the use of torture. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 61, 6–25. https://doi.org/10.1521/ijgp.2011.61.1.6

Washington Post. (2004). Bush and Iraq. Washington Post– ABC News Poll. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/trend_052304_q27_31.html

Wolfson, Y. (2010). Kept in the dark. Treatment of Palestinian detainees in the Petah Tikva interrogation facility of the Israel Security Agency. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0961-1290(06)71719-7

Descargas

Publicado

2019-10-30

Cómo citar

Sehwail, M., Pérez-Sales, P., Rasras, K. M., Sehwail, W., Guasch, A., & Galan, A. (2019). Sleep deprivation does not work: Epidemiology, impacts and outcomes of incidental and systematic sleep deprivation in a sample of Palestinian detainees. Torture Journal, 29(2), 56–69. https://doi.org/10.7146/torture.v29i2.115381

Número

Vol. 29 Núm. 2 (2019): Torture Journal: Journal on Rehabilitation of Torture Victims and Prevention of Torture

Sección

Research and Scientific articles

Licencia

We accept that some authors (e.g. government employees in some countries) are unable to transfer copyright. The Creative Commons Licence  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) covers both the Torture Journal and the IRCT web site. The publisher will not put any limitation on the personal freedom of the author to use material contained in the paper in other works which may be published, provided that acknowledgement is made to the original place of publication.