The Influence Of Dehumanization On Prisoners

Although seemingly outlawing slavery, the 13th amendment of the United States constitution allows for the instatement of slavery as “a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,” ( US Constitution). This essentially granted the government the right to enslave prisoners as long as they have been “duly convicted.” With the advent of Reconstruction and millions of newly freed slaves in the South, white southerners felt threatened by the possibility of Black Americans entering their level of the social hierarchy, considering that for hundreds of years blacks were inherently lower in class than any white person, no matter how poor that person could be. This section of the 13th amendment provided white southerners with

Despite the fact that my parents have worked in the criminal justice system for many years, I have never given much thought to the treatment of prisoners. As we learned from the readings, the current state of the United States criminal justice system is imperfect to the point of cruelty to those involved in it. This is truer for individuals with a mental illness. Due to a lack of psychiatric facilities throughout Alabama and overcrowding of those that do exist, many criminal offenders with mental illnesses are sent to prisons instead. State prisons are currently overcrowded, leading to substandard conditions such in almost every aspect.

The prisoners were emotionally and mentally harmed during the experiment. The prisoners started to lose their identity, and instead started identifying themselves as their number. One participant even went on a hunger strike for the time that he was in the prison. Another participant had to leave the study because he became excessively disturbed as time went on. After the study was done, people had trouble separating what the people did in the study to how they were in real life, which caused a problem when they all had to meet after the trial was over. This ethical violation is very apparent because Dr. Zimbardo did have to end the study before the two weeks was done.

As dozens of participants seen and experience some of the abuse and its effects and said nothing as Zimbardo stated (Zimbardo, p. 130). If one of his colleagues hadn’t been dropped by and saw what was happening the experiment would have continued and many people would have lost their mind (Zimbardo, p. 131). The experiments consist of 24 participants, the volunteers were randomly delegated to play the role of prisoner or guard in a setting made to take a sense of the psychology of imprisonment. Zimbardo infused dramatic realism in the study. The “prisoners” were given identity numbers, stripped naked and saturated. While the guards had to wear that looks similar to a prison guard. (Zimbardo, p. 129). Ethics committees at universities have put an end to these types of an experiment for the reason of potential danger to participants (Zimbardo, p.

The ethical treatment of prisoners is a surprisingly contentious topic, considering how much is known about the conditions and contexts in which human beings function optimally, both physically and mentally. However, ethical discussions frequently have very little to do with what best allows human beings to thrive and function, but instead concern themselves with formulating rules and standards of acceptable behavior, usually out of the mistaken belief that these rules or standards represent some kind of objective, universal ethics. A problem arises when dealing with prisoners, because in many people's minds, the crime or offense of which a prisoner is accused warrants the denial of a certain subset of their rights, but there is not universal acceptance of which rights may be denied and to what extent, due to a disconnect between different modes of ethical thought. Believing in objective, universal ethical standards actually means that anything is justifiable; because these imagined objective standards do not actually exist, people are free to imagine them however they see fit. More utilitarian ethics rooted in conceptions of the social contract are far more useful for determining social policy, because they do not purport to represent objective ethical standards; rather, they acknowledge that ethics and morality are socially constructed, and as such they seek to rationally determine the best practices for achieving any particular goal. By examining two especially

In George Orwell’s novel, “1984”,is about a main character Winston, who is an ordinary citizen of Oceania. The totalitarian society is led by Big Brother. Television screens are strategically placed everywhere watching citizens’ every move. Leaving them in constant fear and paranoia. The corrupt society lead to some citizens wanting to rebel. If they were ever caught, they would be severely punished. This kept wearing citizens down. The dehumanization of citizens of Oceania was due to propaganda, mind control, and the lack of privacy.

Stanford Prison Experiment: In this experiment it took a group of people and made half of them guards and half of them prisoners. The guards were given sunglasses to make them feel more powerful and have a mask to hide behind and the prisoners had chains put on their legs so they can feel a loss of freedom. In the experiment they were not given any rules to how there supposed to treat the prisoners, because these were fake prisoners they challenged the fake guards power. Since the guard’s were not given

Oppression is commonly defined as a prolonged unjust treatment or control. It's where one group dominates another or when one team has unfair advantages and power over another. We live in a society where people of a particular race are denied opportunities and equality. Because of social inequalities, specific groups of people are discriminated against, mistreated and oppressed. This oppression happens because of the inequalities of the system that assists the upper classes at the price of lower levels. Most of these individuals are minorities like myself are in the lower class which are also communities of color. Minorities will not benefit from these systems if those privileged keep making the rules. The social class is set up in a way where it's impossible or challenging to climb the social ladder through exploitation in our institutions.We live in a society where people of a particular race are denied opportunities and equality because of social inequalities, specific groups of people are discriminated against, mistreated and oppressed as I experienced

The study began by arresting the prisoners at their respective houses unexpectedly. They were then taken to the mock prison and processed at they

Social psychology is an empirical science that studies how people think about, influence, and relate to one another. This field focuses on how individuals view and affect one another. Social psychology also produces the idea of construals which represent how a person perceives, comprehends or interprets the environment. Construals introduce the idea that people want to make themselves look good to others and they want to be seen as right. It is also said that the social setting in which people interact impacts behavior, which brings up the idea of behaviorism. Behaviorism is the idea that behavior is a function of the person and the environment.

It was surreal feeling to see an experiment like this one.It seemed so easy in the being for them to take the money but they never really knew what they would endure ultimately.When they added the sunglasses the army uniforms they where setting them selfs a part by stating that we have power over you.When the guards stripped them and being demeaning them it had a negative impact on the prisoners.Taking into the consideration the fact they where being degraded yelled at and punished mentally and physically they rebelled as many of us would.This experiment basically turned normal human being into mentally tortured prisons.This Stanford Prison Experiment impact on the criminal justice corrections system I believe has set an example on how not

Many people wanted Justice to seek revenge on the crimes that these criminals had done. Depending on the crimes that these criminals had committed, they are usually sentenced to many numbers of years in prison and/or placed on death rows. However, should the mentally disabled be allowed to be executed? Although they appear to be normal, what if they really are mentally impaired and could not help themselves. Every years, many mental disabilities were sentenced to prisons for the crimes that they committed. As the mentally ill were sentenced to however many years in prisons, many have come forward to share their experience of their abusing story while in prisons. Some mental illness were too frightened to speak out that they did not want to

"I have visited some of the best and the worst prisons and have never seen signs of coddling, but I have seen the terrible results of the boredom and frustration of empty hours and pointless existence"

The Stanford Prison Experiment was designed to allow 24 participants (college students) to be arrested in a mock police state scenario without any charges being brought against them. The participants were hooded and put into a prison cellblock with other mock prisoners. The purpose of the experiment was to see how non-criminals would be affected by the prison culture and the oversight of prison guards. Philip G. Zimbardo (2004)

In 1971 Philip Zimbardo conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) in the basement of Stanford University as a mock prison. Zimbardo’s aim was to examine the effect of roles, to see what happens when you put good people in an evil place and to see how this effects tyranny. He needed participants to be either ‘prisoners’ or ‘guards’ and recruited them through an advertisement, 75 male college students responded and 24 healthy males were chosen and were randomly allocated roles. Zimbardo wanted to encourage deindividuation by giving participants different uniforms and different living conditions (the guards had luxuries and the prisoners were living as real prisoners). The guards quickly began acting authoritarian, being aggressive towards the prisoners and giving them punishments causing physical and emotional breakdowns. Zimbardo’s intention was for his study to last for 2 weeks, however, it