Abuse of war zone detainees: veterans' perceptions of acceptability.
We assessed detainee abuse acceptance and variables associated with it. Outpatients from a veterans' hospital were administered questionnaires with three increasingly severe scenarios of a U.S. soldier abusing a detainee. Three questionnaire versions differed in the final line of each version's scenarios, describing abuse either as: soldier initiated, superior ordered, or wrong by a "whistleblower" soldier. Three hundred fifty-one veterans participated, 80% with service during the Vietnam War. Zero tolerance for abuse--"completely unacceptable" regardless of who the detainee was--increased with abuse severity (16% for exposure, 31% for humiliation, and 48% for rape of detainee) and with soldier initiation. The strongest, most consistently significant odds were of depressed veterans, veterans with comorbid depression/post-traumatic stress disorder, and men being approximately 2, 3, and 4 to 20 times more tolerant of abuse than those without depression/post-traumatic stress disorder and women, respectively. There may be potential value to using similar scenario-based questionnaires to study active duty military perceptions of detainee abuse. Results may inform prevention policies.
Holmes
William C
WC
Physician, Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion, Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, PA 19104, USA.
Gariti
Katherine O
KO
Sadeghi
Leila
L
Joisa
Sowmya D
SD
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003863:Depression / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D045809:Human Rights Abuses / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D015995:Prevalence; D011329:Prisoners / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014728:Veterans / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000523:psychology; D014744:Vietnam; D014857:Warfare