Profile of Released Guantánamo Detainees: The Government’s Story Then and Now

Between Collaboration and Disobedience

“…The model also shows that the likelihood of getting a release recommendation is higher for detainees who are in bad health and for those who are minors or elderly persons. These findings directly contradict Denbeaux et al (2012) who argue that the only attribute affecting detainees’ release chances is their nationality (cf. the Appendix).…”

“…Five findings should be highlighted: While the distribution of incriminating statements obeys a power law, almost two-thirds (62.6 percent) of all detainees do not incriminate anyone. Yemenis and Saudi Arabians heavily overcontribute in terms of incriminating statements and disobedient actions, whereas Afghans and Pakistanis undercontribute. These disparities seem to result from compositional differences in terms of individual traits. By releasing information on others, detainees do not influence their own chances to get a release recommendation but decrease the chances of those they implicate. Disobedient behavior does not affect the likelihood of getting a release recommendation, except for hunger striking, which has a negative effect. The assessed intelligence value, threat risk, and health status all influence the chances of getting a release recommendation, which directly contradicts prior research by Denbeaux et al (2012). …”

“…For instance, it is not clear whether “transfer to the control of another government” is a “lower” category than “transfer to the control of another government for continued detention,” or if the JTF-GTMO’s scaling system has just become more detailed over time. In order to tackle this problem, various classes were merged to create a binary variable consisting of the two categories “release” and “stay at Guantánamo.” This is not only more reliable than imposing disputable assumptions about the order of various categories but also has the advantage of increasing comparability with Denbeaux et al (2012), who use a similar binary variable.…”

“…The academic work, on the other hand, focuses almost exclusively on the legal status of Guantánamo (Steyn 2004; Amann 2004; Chesney 2006), sometimes combined with medical (Bloche and Marks 2005; Miles 2007) or geographic–philosophical (Gregory 2006) aspects, but with little quantitative social scientific work being produced to date. So far, the only statistics-based analyses were presented by Denbeaux, Denbeaux, and Gregorek (2006a, 2006b, 2006c) and Denbeaux et al (2012). Denbeaux, Denbeaux, and Gregorek’s 2006 work contributed to the understanding of the composition of the population of detainees, but failed to go further by describing any mechanisms at work.…”

“…Denbeaux, Denbeaux, and Gregorek’s 2006 work contributed to the understanding of the composition of the population of detainees, but failed to go further by describing any mechanisms at work. The first and hitherto only published piece of work going in that direction is Denbeaux et al’s 2012 working paper, which investigates factors that influence the release of detainees but, as we will see, suffers from serious technical flaws. The persisting lack of social scientific work on Guantánamo is even more noticeable, given the long history of sociological research on prisons and the social interaction of detainees (Clemmer 1940; Cressey and Krassowski 1957; Goffman 1961; Garabedian 1963; Kaminski 2004) and a deep interest in prisoner treatment in political science (Wallace 2012).…”