[3] The crank on the phone would then be turned, and an electric current would shoot into the prisoner's body.
Continuing with the telephone euphemisms, 'long-distance calls' referred to several such charges, just before the point of losing consciousness.
Often the victim would experience detrimental effects, mainly permanent organ damage and mental health problems.
[2] There are reports from American Vietnam War veterans that field phones were converted into Tucker Telephones which were used to torture Viet Cong prisoners.
A 1974 report by Seth B. Goldsmith, SCD noted "The Tucker telephone not only shocked the toes of the allegedly uncooperative and incorrigible prison-farm inmates of the Arkansas penal system, but it shocked the consciousness of the nation and awakened it to the atrocious conditions inside prisons.