<u>My ramblings as I read through the experiment slide show:</u>
It's interesting to me the importance that degradation plays in prisoner indoctrination. In fact, back in the barbaric middle ages, it was common for vikings to shave the heads of conquered males as a means of subordinating them. (Kind of a peculiar parallel to today's western world where long hair is frowned upon in men. It makes you wonder if there is an underlying societal agenda to make people more subordinated; we often talk about the good of society being higher than the individual good, after all.)
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The guards were prepared for a dangerous environment (warned) and the prisoners were degraded (making them fear their captors). I wonder if the cruelty in this experiment derived itself from the fact that everyone was afraid of everyone else. Fear engenders overreaction like no other emotion (even anger).
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I'm intrigued by the idea of the "privilege cell." In real jails and prisons, they have a similar system called the Trustee System, where prisoners who behave themselves get clean changes of clothing more regularly, better jobs, and better treatment by the guards.
A friend of mine from the Police Academy was a Corrections Deputy in charge of the jail's trustees. He took me on a tour of the jail once (a scary experience, actually, on many levels) and I got to see how he interracted with the prisoners (and his trustees) first hand. His word for inmate was "turd." As in, "let's see what the turds are up to now." He was extremely condescending to all of them, even the trustees, and it was clear that he had no concern or respect for them.
Ironically, while he had an abrasive sense of humor outside of work, he was highly respectful of me in that environment. While he might be a first-rate smartass at the Academy, he told everyone at the jail that I was a detective and never made one smart-ass comment while we were in there.
He clearly differentiated between inmates and civilians in a non-human/human way.
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It's chilling that they had to go to such lengths to hide the truth from the outside world (the parents). It reminds me of things I've read in an Amnesty International book on torture.
It's also scary how quickly the parents fell into all the rules surrounding their visit. In the face of authority, people seem to fall into sheeple mode so easily.
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Re: dealing with a possible escape plot:
Then we formulated a second plan. The plan was to dismantle our jail after the visitors left, call in more guards, chain the prisoners together, put bags over their heads, and transport them to a fifth floor storage room until after the anticipated break in.
When you start having thoughts like this, shouldn't a red light go on telling you that, "Maybe this has gone too far?"
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Prisoner #819
From what I'm reading, this woulda been me.
It's hard to imagine that real prison is just like this, but with anal rape and other forms of additional degradation from fellow inmates. It's also hard to imagine, in the face of what we know, that there are so many people demanding MORE prisons. One look at this experiment is proof enough that prisons are good for nothing.
(How could anyone, no matter how insane, honestly think that someone should be subjected to this environment (not for days, but for YEARS) for smoking weed?
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During the parole hearings we also witnessed an unexpected metamorphosis of our prison consultant as he adopted the role of head of the Parole Board. He literally became the most hated authoritarian official imaginable, so much so that when it was over he felt sick at who he had become -- his own tormentor who had previously rejected his annual parole requests for 16 years when he was a prisoner.
This is damn interesting. A former prisoner, so indoctrinated into the prison system that he becomes someone he hated simply by being put into that role.
In a book on torture that I read, I was amazed and alarmed to discover that many torturers are victims of torture themselves. In fact, it is a common form of indoctrination for state torturers to be tortured, just like we beat up on boot camp trainees to indoctrinate them into the role of soldier.
(Who the fuck thinks this shit up, then implements it as a "good idea?")
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It amazes me how quickly the prisoners were broken, considering it was never the systematic intention of the experiment to do this. It gives me a renewed respect for the destructive power of cruelty.
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The incident with prisoner #416, the new guy, is illuminating. Instead of being regarded as a hero, he was shunned by the others. Never underestimate the power of fear to make a person docile.
The more I read, the more I am convinced that prisons are institutions of torture, rather than correction, regardless of the euphemistic choice of names. In torture, the idea is to kill the person's self, to break a person through pain, degradation, fear, and deprivation of hope. Torturers don't just use pain. Common tactics also include mock executions, sleep deprivation, and psychological tactics identical to those used in the experiment.
The frightening part is how easily people fall into the roles of torturer and victim, when just a few of the variables (such as a confining space, mutual fear or contempt, and means of dehumanizing are available).
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I ended the study prematurely for two reasons. First, we had learned through videotapes that the guards were escalating their abuse of prisoners in the middle of the night when they thought no researchers were watching and the experiment was "off." Their boredom had driven them to ever more pornographic and degrading abuse of the prisoners.
I really can't think of commentary that could add to the power of this statement.
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It's been thirty-two years since that experiment ended, and nothing has changed in the prison system, or in the attitudes that demand it's existence. Pretty fucking sorry.
The Rev
Great thread, V3d4!
BTW, have you heard of a similar experiment involving students giving electric shocks to subjects when wrong answers were given during questioning? I don't know the name of the study, but apparently, even when the voltage was upped, and the subjects "screamed and pleaded" for the abuse to stop (it was all an act, unbeknownst to the student doing the shocking), every student continued to apply the punishments, even when voltages reached "dangerous" levels. They did this all because an "authority figure" told them to do it.
If I can find a site about this study, I'll post a thread.