The Stanford Prison Experiment

In the summer of 1971 24 college students were rounded up and taken to a make-shift prison inside the walls of a Stanford basement. By the toss of a coin, 12 students were assigned the role of prison guard, while the remaining 12 were assigned the role of prisoner.The 24 students involved in the experiment were picked, through much deliberation from the researchers and pyschologists themselves, because of their apparent "normalcy." Each and every student involved signed up voluntarily (for the price of $15 a day).

The project was originally planned to span a period of 2 weeks. It lasted only 6 days.

The events that went on during those 6 days and 6 nights (well documented and video-taped) were- by all standards- dehumanizing, immoral, and sadistic. It is a horrific account of the powers of the prison system in our society today, and a sad insight on the affect it has on the men and women who control the prison as well as those incarcerated in it.

It has made me rethink the way I view my own definition of criminal punishment.

Take a look:

- The Official site: http://www.prisonexp.org/

- Video by the 'warden': http://video.google.com/videoplay docid=2683701783583080634

- Entry in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

- About the end: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/97/970108prisonexp.html

Astounding, isn't it? It reminds me of the Milgram Experiment in 1961, were volunteers were asked to press a button that 'electricly shocked' an unseen person in solitary confinement, the shocks gradually becoming stronger in voltage each time the volunteer pressed the button. With each shock they could hear the begging and screaming of the person in the other room, but because they were commanded to by a superior they continued administering the 'treatment.' 67% of the volunteers involved completed the treatment, knowingly pressing the button the maximum amount possible (the final shock surging with 450 volts of electricity), despite the fact that the person in the other room had since stopped making noise.

Remember: they were all VOLUNTEERS.

There are so many negative implications toward our country's current politics and procedures when dealing with nation-wide AND international problems that it makes me dizzy. What is the difference between punishment and obedience? What does this say of the cognitive dissonance theory and the power of authority, especially in America today? Things are happening in this world that by normal standards are atrocities of everything we- as a nation- should stand for, but yet we agree to it all and placate ourselves by thinking that that is how it has to be. How do we distance ourselves and become the independent variable in the experiment? When do we suddenly see through the eyes of the uninvolved bystander, who has not seen the events leading up to it all, in which we base our whole arguement?

And what do we do with it all now?