Sarah Jo Pender, a woman who experienced solitary confinement in the Indiana Women’s Prison writes, Women who enter sane will become so depressed that they shut down or hurt themselves. I watched a woman claw chunks of flesh from her cheeks and nose and write on the
In order to make the prison experiment as realistic as possible Zimbardo had made those assigned to play the prisoner role were arrested by the Palo Alto police department, deloused, forced to wear chains and prison garments, and transported to the basement of the Stanford psychology department. While being arrested they were fingerprinted, photographed and ‘booked’, then they were blindfolded. Meanwhile the guards were dressed in identical uniforms of khaki, and they carried a whistle around their neck and also wore special sunglasses, to make eye contact with prisoners impossible. Three guards worked shifts of eight hours
When the prisoners talked with the priest half of them introduced themselves with their ID-number. During the conversation the priest told the prisoners that they had to get a lawyer to be able the leave the prison for good. 5. Why did the Stanford prison experiment terminate earlier than expected? The experiment was expected to last for a fortnight.
These dreams are the fantasies that people in prison are dreaming up, so when analyzing it on a psychological level there is some reason why they are in prison in the first place. They obviously did something wrong and so these fantasy lives are what they could have had if they had not screwed up and gotten into prison. Even in the dreams themselves the people are lonely as we can see in “The meanest Cop in the World” when Himes says, “and then she looked into Jack’s eyes and knew … that Jack was only lonely” (Himes 209). The guys loneliness is even prevalent in his fantasy dreams. Going back to the first story “On Dreams and Reality” the main character is unhappy when he gets out because of the fantasy he has in which he is a good person who was not in jail.
Since the beginning of the human existence, man has always dominated and ruled over one another be it empires, corporations, or small groups. Authority and obedience has always been a factor of who we are. This natural occurrence can be seen clearly through the psychological experiments known as The Milgram Experiment and the Stanford Prison Experiment. Both of these studies are based on how human beings react to authority figures and what their obedience is when faced with conflict. During the 1960’s Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments to test how a person reacts to authority.
Ronald Joncas, an inmate in the documentary, notes that it is illogical to expect the inmates to behave as humans yet they are treated like animals while in jail (Edge). The idleness in the cells prompts the prisoners to do the craziest of things including cutting and even sacking their ball, such an inmate may end up crazy after the jail term, and the prison, therefore, fails in its objective which is correcting the behavior (Edge). The filmmaker aims to draw the attention of the federal government and the state of the prisons in America. Solitary cells should be minimally used so that they serve as a corrective measure and not making the inmates worse. The information is accurate because it is based on real life experiences.
The ¨Stanford Prison Experiment¨ was a breakdown of the morals and rules on how people would act toward one another due to their environment, rather than how they should. The study had created more questions than answers, specifically about the darkness and lack of moral standards that inhabits the human soul. It showed that methodical abuse and denial of human rights is nothing new in prison facilities. The novel Lord of the Flies shows how easily people become dangerous depending on their situation, and how easily humans become savages when there are no definite rules. Lord of the Flies and ¨The Stanford Prison Experiment¨ have many similarities in the way they both show the effects that occur when you lose all moral standards, and lack of rules.
After that warning, the men kept doing it. They were too afraid of the consequences of what would happen if they failed to obey orders. (Browning 315). The Stanford Prison Experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was supposed to last two weeks but ended up only lasting six days because of the way that people abused their power and did not do the morally right thing.
When Andy asks Norton to request a retrial, Norton dismisses Andy’s claims and puts him in solitary confinement for more than a month. Furthermore, the warden takes Tommy outside at night and have him killed by Captain Hadley. This is subjecting an inmate to a cruel and unusual punishment that is a violation of the 8th amendment. Under the utilitarianism ethical system, the warden’s actions would be considered immoral because he had inmate killed. This is also dereliction of duty which is an offense.
The power given to prison guards over prisoners can puts prison guards in the position to become evil. A great example of prison guards turning evil is seen through the Stanford Prison Experiment. This experiment was conducted using normal mentally stable volunteers and assigned them to be either a prisoner or a prison guard. The roles were selected at random. Once the people who were assigned as guards received the power in the prison, they began to perform humiliating acts towards the prisoners; humiliating acts such as striping the prisoners naked and other sexually graphic acts.