Stanford Prison Experiment: Impact On The Criminal Justice Corrections System

Most individuals with authority will likely abuse their power. Such as demonstrated in the Stanford Prison experiment, where participants played the role of guards and prison in a mock-prison. This experiment was supposed to last two weeks but only lasted six days because the guards were buying abusive and the prisoners became anxious and highly stressed. Also, in this experiment, the man who conducted this experiment lost side track of the purpose of the experiment and that it is not an actual prison. Although, the experiment was just an experiment, the individuals who were the guards loss awareness of that and abuse their positions as guards. These individuals we don’t know how their characteristics, nor their personalities. We know they comply their behavior to fit the role of a guard. We can see this in the Flint water crisis since the people in positions that they need to protect the well- being of their people just as the guards who purpose is to maintain order in the prison not abuse the prisoners. We assume people in authority didn’t want to harm any individuals purposely. People with positions with authority, such as the governor of the state didn’t want to say one of the city

Though this was just an experiment many of the test subjects were quickly pushed to their limits and the ones in authority took their roles to the extreme. Eventually, this caused an early shut down of the experiment. There was a total of 9 students who were willing to be the prisoners in this experiment. The study issued that the guards would be forced to give brutal and cruel torture upon the prisoner. The experiment was known as one of the most controversial studies in the history of social psychology because even though it was an experiment, the prisoners went through major psychological changes and one prisoner even succumbed to a short period of insanity. Through deindividualized torture, exploitation and manipulation many of the test subjects underwent the same torture as those who were imprisoned at Abu Ghraib. It was finally shut down by a woman by the name of Christina Maslach but similarly to Abu Ghraib no one was held accountable for the short period of torture. Also like Abu Ghraib, the men who played the role of the guards in The Stanford Prison Experiment underwent psychological changes where they became evil, relentless and manipulative all while blaming it on the fact that they’re “just following orders.” In many cases when a person is given authority, they abuse it

The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted at Stanford University on August 14–20, 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo. It was funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research and was of interest to both the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps as an investigation into the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners. The experiment is a classic study on the psychology of imprisonment and is a topic covered in most introductory psychology textbooks.

The Stanford Prison Experiment conducted by Zimbardo in the summer of 1971 to study the behavior and the psychological effects of becoming a guard and a prisoner. This experiment was supposed to be a two-week experiment, but that was not the case it only ended after six days due to the difficulties and the stress that the guards and the prisoners were experiencing. The methodology behind this experiment was to get volunteers for the study by posting it in the local newspaper. People who were interested in taking a part in the study were screened beforehand for any medical issues and criminal background. 24 College students took a part in this study and they were being paid $15 for each day. After that, the students were divided up into two different groups guards and prisoners which were decided by a flip of a coin, they were put in a prison-like environment which was in the basement of the Psychology Department at the Stanford University.

The Stanford Prison Experiment, shows the depravity of human nature. The abuse that the prisoners suffered throughout the experiment shows the sadism that all humans have within. The prisoners are subjected to psychological torture daily, for a total six days. They are brainwashed into believing they are lesser, and to thinking they are truly prisoner. On day six, the last day of the experiment,

The Stanford Prison experiment was terminated of August 20, 1971 only 6 days after it began. The experiment was destined to fail because the psychologist Philip Zimbardo failed to follow the APA’s ethical guideline. Dr. Zimbardo put himself in the experiment causing him to be unaware of his responsibilities to the community he worked in. Zimbardo and the correctional officers also violated the Justice and respect for people's rights and dignity. The guards were given too much power and instead of stopping them Zimbardo and his team just sat back and watched.

If I was in charge of an experiment like the Stanford Prison Experiment, I think that I would have conducted something like that. I don’t see any moral reasoning why not to, all the participants were voluntary and there was nothing illegal being conducted and extremely valuable data has been extracted from it so I do not see the point of steering clear of this type of experiment. I think a good follow on study might have been a roll reversal, would the inmates have taken a different approach to the guard duties knowing how they were treated while inmates or would they have acted even more aggressive?

In the summer of 1971 at Stanford University psychologist Phillip Zimbardo conducted a behavioral experiment meant to simulate a prison. This experiment was supposed to study the behaviors both guards and prisoners go through by using student volunteers to play the parts. This experiment, conducted in the basement of a Stanford University building, began to take on a life of its own and has since gone down in infamy. This paper will look into the person responsible for this experiment, how it was conducted and the outcome of the infamous study.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was very strange. When one of the prisoners said “they were out of control,” I thought about an authoritarian leader- someone that controls every aspect of a person’s life. I think Zimbardo, creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and the guards were being an authoritarian leader. I thought it was disturbing that some of the people that were given the guards position only said “yes” to participate in the experiment because they needed a job and thought that the Prison Experiment would be more entertaining. I think it was weird that being in this experiment changed the “prisoners” physically and mentally. In the Stanford Prison Experiment video, it mentioned the electric shock experiment that was done to people

Zimbardo implies the reason there are negative attitudes in prisons is because of the authority figures in the prison rather than the inmates themselves (although to some extent they do play a part in the aggression).

Before watching this video and discussing it in class I never heard of the Stanford University Prison Experiment. I don’t think this experiment was very ethic due to the gruesome treatment that went on over thirty years ago in the basement of this university. In 1971 Dr. Philp Zimbardo a former sociologist at Stanford created a mock prison to do an unethical experiment. He wanted to test the power of a cruel environment without clear rules to change and transform “normal” people in a prison life experiment. In 2003 in Abu Ghraib, Iraq military enforcement tortured and beat people that did not want to follow the strict directions given to them. No one of ever knew about the treatment against these people if it was not pictures of proof to help

Philip Zimbardo, he explained that the procedure for the Stanford Prison Experiment was to observe an individual's behavioral and psychological damages that can impact their role-playing of being a prisoner or a guard for two weeks in the basement of the Psychology building at Stanford University. Participants were 24 selected healthy, intelligent, middle-class college male students from across the United States and Canada. Each one of participants were to have a clear background check of no behavioral damages and no psychological damages in order to participate in the experiment. Those who participated in the experiment had an opportunity to earn 15 dollars a day during the two-week period. The process of the experiment was that participants were arrested from home by police, searched, warned of legal rights and handcuffed, then were booked at the police station with formal fingerprint scanning and identification completion.

Response to Stanford Experiment          The Stanford Prison Experiment happened because it was a breakdown of their rights,ways of thinking, and physical humiliation.         They sabotaged their way of thinking. The feeling and how the place was set up made it feel like it was real and that they were in a real prison. In the movie the guys really were in into the feel of their location and they were planning to escape it like a real prison ,and in the end when the guy told them that they were able to leave that the experiment and they shocked and just stood there.

The Stanford Prison Experiment was one of the most criticized human nature experiments in history. In the experiment Dr. Zimbardo wanted to see if people would think for themselves, or fall into predefined roles that they were given. Before the experiment took place, Dr. Zimbardo picked 24 male subjects he thought were mentally and emotionally stable. He also built a mock prison in the basement of Stanford University. During this process all the subjects were divided in half making 12 guards and the other 12 prisoners. To help define the roles even further he dressed the guards in police type uniforms with wooden clubs. The individuals that were used as the prisoners were stripped searched and given smocks as their uniforms. Once the experiment started everyone seemed to fall right into the roles they were given. Even Dr. Zimbardo fell into his role as the prison

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