Torture Police:

Torture is defined by the United Nations Convention Against Torture as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity." In addition to state sponsored torture, individuals or groups may also inflict torture on others for similar reasons, however, the motive for torture can also be for the sadistic gratification of the torturer, as was the case in the Moors Murders.

Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of effecting religious conversion or political re-education. Nevertheless in the 21st Century torture is almost universally considered to be an extreme violation of human rights, as stated by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Signatories of the UN Convention Against Torture agree not to intentionally inflict severe pain or suffering on anyone, to obtain information or a confession, to punish them, or to coerce them or a third person. In times of war signatories of the Third Geneva Convention and Fourth Geneva Convention agree not to torture protected persons (POWs and enemy civilians) in armed conflicts.

The universal legal prohibition is based on a universal philosophical consensus that torture and ill-treatment are repugnant, abhorrent, and immoral. A further moral definition of torture proposes that the sin of torture consists in the disproportionate infliction of pain.

These international conventions and philosophical propositions not withstanding, organizations such as Amnesty International that monitor abuses of human rights report that the use of torture condoned by states is widespread in many regions of the world

Police are agents or agencies empowered to use force and other forms of coercion and legal means to effect public and social order. The term is most commonly associated with police departments of a state that are authorized to exercise the police power of that state within a defined legal or territorial area of responsibility. The word comes from the Latin politia (“civil administration”), which itself derives from the Ancient Greek πόλις, for polis ("city"). The first police force comparable to the present-day police was established in 1667 under King Louis XIV in France, although modern police usually trace their origins to the 1800 establishment of the Marine Police in London, the Glasgow Police, and the Napoleonic police of Paris.

The first modern police force is also commonly said to be the London Metropolitan Police, established in 1829, which promoted the preventive role of police as a deterrent to urban crime and disorder. The notion that police are primarily concerned with enforcing criminal law was popularized in the 1930s, when “law enforcement” became an interchangeable term for police; this however has only ever constituted a small portion of policing activity. Policing has included an array of activities in different contexts, but the predominant ones are concerned with order maintenance and the provision of services. Alternative names for police force include constabulary, gendarmerie, police department, police service, or law enforcement agency, and members can be police officers, constables, troopers, sheriffs, rangers, or peace officers.