While I don’t have any statistics, other than just my impression after reading news or talking to people:

There seem to be people unaware that what they are doing is a form of mental torture. There are (at least what it seems) a lot of toxic relationships, and there are instances where neither the victim nor the perpetrator realize how their actions affect themselves or the other part.

I am far from excusing anyone who behaves in a mentally torturous way and agree that they should be punished, but torture might not be as intentional in all situations.

IMO, we should properly categorize the different kinds of torture and the different severity, and perform punishment based on those categorizations. It makes sense, at least to me, to have a stronger punishment for IDF, than for a toxic mother somewhere.

A couple of things I have read as a comment on this post that I would consider torture:

• Rape (this should be classified as torture today)
• Burying people alive
• Throwing someone in a volcano (in a world where dying is an impossibility)

Some that I am more uncertain on:

• Environmental destruction (one could argue that this is indirect torture, as the end result could lead to people being starved, or harmed in other torturous ways)