Tucker telephone
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The Tucker Telephone is a torture device designed using parts from an old-fashioned crank telephone. The electric generator of the telephone is wired so that the instrument can be used to administer electric shocks to another person. The Tucker Telephone was invented by a trustee who acted as the "resident physician" at the Tucker State Prison Farm, Arkansas, in the 1960s.
At the "Tucker Hospital", an inmate was strapped down and electrodes placed on toes and genitals. When the crank was turned, a charge was shot through the body. Continuing with the telephone euphemisms, 'long-distance calls' referred to several such charges, just before the point of losing consciousness. This was imperfect, however, and other consequences included permanent organ damage and insanity. Its use is substantiated until 1968. [1]
The Tucker Telephone is also sometimes referred to as Radio Moscow. There are scattered reports from American Vietnam war veterans that field phones were occasionally converted into Tucker telephones which were used by platoon commanders to torture Viet Cong prisoners.
[edit] External References
- ^ James Inciardi, Criminal Justice, Seventh Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2005.
