Friday, May 28, 2004

The Stanford study

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. That is, until someone finds the pictures.

It's 2:30 a.m. Bored prison guards pull prisoners from their cells, strip them naked, chain them together and force them to simulate sodomy. The guards know someone is recording their activities, but they don't let concerns about future consequences interfere with the degradation and abuse.

Sound familiar? It might sound like abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, but these pictures were taken over 30 years ago — at Stanford University.

More

Ah yes, that good old American morality Mr. Gore says Mr. Bush has corrupted.

Two days into the good doctor's experiment, the normal, adjusted students were playing their prison roles with frightening reality.

Two days.

Humans are just creepy. I'm sorry.

The "prisoners," fed up with having roll calls in the middle of the night, rebelled by pushing their beds against their cell bars and refusing to come out. The "guards" called in reinforcements, pulled the prisoners from their cells, striped them naked, and proceeded to humiliate and abuse them for hours. To further reinforce their power, the guards took away bathroom privileges and forced prisoners to urinate and defecate in buckets inside their cells, and to later clean the mess out with their bare hands. It got worse — so bad that Zimbardo halted the planned two-week study after only six days.


Prisoners and guards in the Stanford Prison Experiment
Photo: Stanford Prison Experiment/prisonexp.org