AEI Special Poll Report: Public opinion on torture

We will soon have a new round of polling on public reactions to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. What will Americans’ reactions be to the report? We can’t say for sure, but there is already a considerable body of recent poll questions that may shed some light on what new polling will show.

The Pew Research Center has one of the longest trends on the use of torture. In its 2004 question, 15 percent said the “use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information” could often be justified, 28 percent sometimes, 21 percent rarely, and 32 percent never justified. The organization has asked the question nine times since then, and in the latest asking from 2011, 19 percent responded “often,” 34 percent “sometimes,” 18 percent “rarely,” and 24 percent “never.” Responses to a similar question asked five times between 2009 and 2013 by AP/GfK and National Opinion Research Center (NORC) pollsters are in line with Pew’s. In Pew’s latest, there are large partisan differences in responses, but small differences by age.

When thinking about torture, American public opinion appears to be a combination of idealism and realism. While Americans find the practices abhorrent and barbaric, most are unwilling to rule them out completely.

For a full compilation of public opinion on matters related to the War on Terror, see AEI’s Public Opinion Study “Attitudes Towards the War on Terror and the War in Afghanistan: A Ten-Year Review.” The complete study can be found here.