Stockroom Syndrome

In 1973, in an attempt to understand the conformity to roles of guards and prisoners, Zimbardo launched a role-playing experiment that modeled prison life and reflected the environment of an American prison. The experiment was to see if prison guards are brutal and cruel because that’s their sadistic personality types that cause conflicts with the prisoners or if its due to the prison setting itself. In other words, there is a dispositional hypothesis that states that prison guards act the way they do because their personalities cause

The two officers expressed their concerns for the department of corrections along with their concerns for the prisoners; under their set of moral rules it is possible they felt they were a part of the problem and not of the solution and felt the need to take further action to resolve the conflict. The officers may have been able to avoid their ultimate outcome if they investigated alternate approaches.

While the conditions of Mrs. Rowlandson’s captivity could cause Stockholm syndrome, the symptoms displayed favor a diagnosis of PTSD. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry gives four conditions as a definition for Stockholm Syndrome: (I). A perceived threat to one’s physical or psychological survival at the hands of an abuser(s); (II). Perceived small kindnesses from the abuser to the victim; (III). Isolation from perspectives other than those of the abuser; and (IV). The inescapability of the situation.”

Negotiations between inmates and authorities stalled but, eventually the inmates come up with 11 demands which included basic prison conditions like overcrowding, inmate discipline, educational services and improving food. The prisoners also demanded to talk to independent federal officials and members of the news media. In exchange they released the 12 officers held hostage. Some officers were badly beaten and raped but, others were protected by other

Specifically, the victims have lost the ability to feel and the prisoners the ability to sympathize. They look on without a sense of compassion, as they were used to these gruesome sightings. As shown when prisoners helped those who killed their fellow prisoners. To illustrate, during one of the “condemned [youth’s]” hangings the Lagerkapo “was assisted by two prisoners…in exchange for two bowls of soup” (62). Their heartlessness towards one of their fellow prisoners for bowls of soup demonstrates the

As many Stockholm victims, Hearst begins to depend on her captors and trust them. The victims may feel the kidnappers are their only source of food, water and shelter. The kidnappers may use these privileges as a reward and punishment system. Depending on the abductor and how long he may keep the person, they also begin to develop feel for the victim. The kidnapper may also lie to the victim, tell them all their family is dead, they are not wanted or their family is no longer looking for them.

Unfortunately, there was little discussion of the psychological effects of solitary confinement in the medical literature during the first half of the twentieth century. As evidence accumulated during the nineteenth century that solitary confinement produced a very disturbing incidence of insanity, physical disease, and death; the system fell into disgrace and therefore had changed from an open rather optimistic experiment in social reform into a hidden secretive form of punishment and control. When reports found that “brain washing” of American prisoners of war in Korea were taking place it caused a devastating psychological

The researchers observed the behaviors and mentalities of both guards and prisoners by naturalistic observation.

Finally, solitary confinement may also be supported by the fact that it isolates violent prisoners and ensures the safety of other inmates. Indeed, the number one priority of the prison should be to keep their inmates safe. As stated in Gary Deland’s essay, prisoners’ interactions with other inmates can be severely controlled strictly by placing one in solitary confinement. There is no more effective way to prevent violence than by taking out the perpetrator from the situation.

Oryx’s dependency on her captors to survive is one of the main causes of her Stockholm syndrome. She grew up in a poor town where kids “were being trained to earn their living in the wide world” (Atwood 141). Oryx understands that the only way she can survive is for her to be sold. If not, she will be a burden to her family, and she’ll eventually die because there’s not much food to go around their town. This time, Uncle En who’s the villager’s only hope for surviving, enters the life of Oryx.He assures Oryx and the other kids that: “they would be well fed and given a safe place to sleep, they would be carefully guarded, and they would be paid a sum of money, which they could send home to their families, or not, whatever they chose” (Atwood 143). To Oryx, Uncle En is a hero who’s doing her and her family a favor. As a result, she develops a Stockholm syndrome with Uncle En because “[he] hold[s] the keys to life”, providing Oryx shelter, money, and protection (VerEecke). Oryx sees Uncle En’s transaction with her mother as a kind opportunity for her to live a better life. According to a clinical psychologist named Joseph M. Carver, “In threatening and survival situations, we look for evidence of hope – a small sign that the situation may improve. When an abuser/controller shows the victim some small kindness, even though it is to the abusers benefit as well, the victim interprets that small kindness as a positive trait of the captor”. This demonstrates exactly why Oryx views

Gresham M. Sykes describes the society of captives from the inmates’ point of view. Sykes acknowledges the fact that his observations are generalizations but he feels that most inmates can agree on feelings of deprivation and frustration. As he sketches the development of physical punishment towards psychological punishment, Sykes follows that both have an enormous effect on the inmate and do not differ greatly in their cruelty.

The United Nations Convention Against Torture stated that torture is defined as “any state-sanctioned act ‘by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person’ for information, punishment, intimidation, or for reasons based on discrimination” (AFSC). Craig Haney, a social psychologist and psychology professor of University of California, interviewed a group of people in solitary confinement in 1993 at Pelican Bay State Prison (a supermax, Security Housing Unit (SHU)) where he was studying psychological effects of isolation on prisoners. 20 years later he went the same prison to do more interviews only to find the same prisoners there in the same condition (Goode). Haney found high rates of psychological trauma in long term solitary confinement where more than half of the studied prisoners had nightmares, heart palpitations, fear of impending nervous breakdowns, hallucinations, perceptual distortions, while a quarter of the prisoners had suicidal ideation (Rice). In ACLU prison, prisoners have gone as far as swallowing broken glass, amputating fingers, testicles, scrotum, earlobes, and one even amputated a finger and ate it in a bowl of ramen noodles (Katel). Dr. Haney describe what they were going through as, “They were grieving for their lost lives, for their loss connectedness to the social world and their families outside and also for their lost selves. Most of them really did understand that they had lost who they were, and weren’t sure of who they had become” (Goode). In other words, in solitary confinement prisoners experienced identity loss as they were completely isolated from human contact: One inmate who was in solitary confinement for 24 years explained, “I got a 15-minute phone call when my father died. I realized I have family

The normal reaction to feelings of helplessness and vulnerability is often a need to regain control–

Specific techniques that were used to bring about the destruction of self-awareness among the prisoners included, physical privation, prolonged interrogation, total isolation from former relationships, detailed regimentation of all daily activities, humiliation, degradation and social alienation by “thought reform” group (s).

Although this may push them back immensely, they have become aware that this is for the peace of many people, not just a couple of prisoners. Then they proceed with whatever is needed to do.