[rivd]

In a pure theoretical sense, yes torture is very effective at hurting people. But only for watchers or executioners who have a need of seeing the person being tortured suffer. I really doubt if traumatizing (torture > just hurting/punishing) a criminal is going to change his behaviour for the better.

The question then would be if the goal of a justice system should be to hurt people in the most effective way imaginable.

I don't know what you mean by creating a "faux-clinical atmosphere".

Isn't the reason for punishing criminals that they broke some aspect of acceptable social interaction (not hurting others a major one of those aspects) ? Even in the context of the state having the monopoly on the use violence, they should not use violence to the fullest extent possible, if only to prove that some actions are really unacceptable and there is never a reason to sink to the same level of what the criminal did. Criminals may be one-time-offenders or life-long-monsters, they are still humans.

You may call that squeamish, but i don't think torture should have any place in a modern society.