Stanford Prison Experiment

The book NewJack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover is an profound book to read it gave me a great glimpse of how the prison life really is and how you can put yourself in comparing how Hollywood movies or TV shows displays them. Conover discuss about the history of Sing Sing prison since 1826. It was an authentic and straight forward of how the prison life is especially for those who want to pursue as a correctional officers. It gave two perspectives one from the guards and the other by the inmates. It shows a psychological effects of violence between the guards and inmates within the cell walls also it gave the transformation life in training and life with inmates. What surprise me in the book it only took the recruiters seven weeks training camp during those week they had to “write the use of force, from penal law to “standard of inmates behavior”… there would be tests every Friday, on which we had to score 70 percent or better. We’d have two hours of physical performance test in out last week. We’d learn how to use batons and how to fight hand to hand in a course called Defensive Tactics. We’d have to qualify on a shooting range. Finally, we’d be exposed to tear gas and learn how to fire gas guns (p.23).” The training camp was very similar to a military boot camp. After the seven weeks of training they all went straight to prison work during prison they had to deal with the hardship, stress and chaos surrounding the job of officers and what they go through during

The guards are brutal, they use force to scare the prisoners to do as they are told and completely rely on threats and intimidation to keep their position. The power that they hold may be very strong at their peak but when power relies on abuse and dishonesty is can not last forever.

The difference in power makes contributes to situations like this. The guards had authority that's why they treated the prisoners like that. They knew that their word would be taken over a prisoners words. Another instance in people who have domestic staffs, some treat them like they are lesser than animals. Some would not even feed their staff or take care if them when they are ill. all they care about is that they do the numerous amount of work that is being assigned to them. If I were a prisoner given the circumstances at Stanford County prison, i would not have been able to endure the experience. it was horrible to see how humans are treating follow humans. Some of the things i would have done different if i was under such circumstance would include, trying as much as possible to be alone and not participate in anything that would drag me into trouble. I would also try to be friends with some of the guards that way i could escape the inhumane treatments. Furthermore, I would have tried my best to gain the sympathy of the guards and try to establish report, this way i could have someone that would be in my defense in case i was in trouble with other guards or

By earning the prisoners respect, this officer’s life was saved. This is an important life lesson to all law enforcement and corrections officers. Another thing I want to point out briefly is that inmates have a code of things you can and cannot do. For instance, sex offenders generally

The Stanford prison experiment was unique because they wanted to watch and learn the behaviors of a prisoner and a prison guard, observing the effects they found some pretty disturbing things among the students. Dr. Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues at Stanford University stayed true to what they believed, and they did what they felt they needed to do to find a set of results for their simulation. Unfortunately they where swallowed into the experiment, when they became the roles, just as the students where. So from their point of view I want to say that what they where doing was ethical, and being that the prison experiment was stopped before its half way mark showed that they realized that it was time to call it quits. Dr. Zimbardo noticed

This allowed for the guards to play prisoners against each other; thus giving them more power. The prisoners were subjected to humiliating situations and an ethical expectation some guards had was whether or not to intervene. It was obvious a lot of them different feel comfortable with what was going on, which is why they played smaller roles. However, even though they didn’t agree with everything going on; none of the guards stepped in to put an end to

When put into an authoritative position over others, is it possible to claim that with this new power individual(s) would be fair and ethical or could it be said that ones true colors would show? A group of researchers, headed by Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo, designed and executed an unusual experiment that used a mock prison setting, with college students role-playing either as prisoners or guards to test the power of the social situation to determine psychological effects and behavior (1971). The experiment simulated a real life scenario of William Golding’s novel, “Lord of the Flies” showing a decay and failure of traditional rules and morals; distracting exactly how people should behave toward one another. This

What would you have done if you were a participant in the study? I thought the experiment was very informative but it lacked boundaries. I would have stopped the experiment as soon as I witnessed the prisoners exhibiting signs of distress. The participants conformed to their roles but many of them lost touch with reality. When society lacks boundaries we have to be assertive and set them for ourselves.

I would be a strict but fair guard because even if these people are incarcerated they are still people. I would enforce the rules of the prison, because if I did not things can easily get out of hand, and cause injury to myself or others, either guards or other inmates. I would also want to enforce the rules because the incarcerated are in prison for a reason.

If I were a prisoner, especially knowing that it was only a simulation, I would have rebelled (as some prisoners did) and definitely not become subordinate or ‘tattled’ on my fellow prisoners. I know this as I have spent a few days in a real jail before. While I was there I tried to avoid getting into trouble and the guards didn’t provoke me. When they stripped searched me however I asked the guard doing the search if he was a “f**got.” I guess I didn’t like someone having control over me like that. Had a guard this real situation provoked me, even knowing the consequences, I probably would kick his ass. Furthermore, I know I wouldn’t act crazy, cry or puss out and act like my life was ending. I would probably treat this situation pretty comically with a lot of sarcasm and would probably try to psych-out the guards.

2. Deciding what guard I would be is extremely difficult. I would like to believe I would have been a nice and reasonable guard. Instead of forcing inmates do pushups and harassing them, I would attempt to talk through problems and get down to the root of the problem. I feel I would be the rational guard because I am a talker rather than a person of violence to solve a problem. Violence would be the last resort if the problem

There are even worse scenarios that exist in today's prisons. The prison guards have little control and prison can be a violent place because again it is not a place that specializes in rehab. On television shows you see inmates stabbing each other and are quick to assume that it is a dramatization, but it really an occurrence that happens often, in prisons all over the world for that matter. In an article by Raphael Rowe he writes about how a part of him died in prison, and he had to be on his guard constantly, "Once, I was sitting in the television room watching football when someone I knew came in and told me to leave the room. I didn't ask questions: I just left and stood outside. A few seconds later, three other guys came running past me, pillow-cases with eye-holes cut out over their heads, carrying a huge cooking pot full of hot oil. I heard the screams long before some young black guy - a sex offender - came running out, his skin dripping from his face." Such horrid tales should let the general public know that we need to reevaluate

In my grade eleven year of english we studied Lord of the Flies, my teacher had pointed out the psychology behind the story and it sparked my interest in this area of study. He gave our class information about different experiments and studies relating to psychology. One experiment that I was very keen on investigating and looking into in more depth was the Stanford Prison Experiment. This experiment was done to prove that when someone is given power they tend to abuse it. This experiment was really interesting to read about, it was very intriguing to see how people could abuse power even though they were deemed “normal”. I was very interested in learning how the human brain works in this situation and what they thought during it. This led

On April 17, 2016 60 Minutes aired the interview of Bill Whitaker with Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney. He stated that the Rikers Island prison had a culture of violence. Specifically he claimed that if a prisoner commits an offense, they need to be punished; however, the same goes for a prison guard if they, too, commit and offense; they’d need to be punished as well. As the interviewee said, “People have to understand that there are consequences for their actions, not just the inmates, but the officers as well.” Although some people believe that if a prisoner steps out of line then they deserve whatever punishment they get, Jonathan Abady, a private attorney, insists that many of the injuries go too far, including facial fractures, traumatic

There are so many people that can just do so many bad things in their life and note even care, I could not do it, I would have tried my best to get out of that prison. Something that I would have done differently is I was to be the prisoner was just simply keep to myself and if the guards would tease me or bully me I would just keep my mouth shut and just take a deep breath, trying to hold it all in and not to explode because they would probably beat me like they did with the guy who tried to chock the guard. Therefore, If I was a real prisoner in a real prison I would not be able to take it and if I did I would suffer from depression. I would not be able to deal with all the violence that goes on in the