The Influence Of Dehumanization On Prisoners

The prisoners became dependent, helpless, and passive. On the other hand, the guards acted exactly opposite. “They became abusive and aggressive at the simulated prison, bulling and insulting the prisoners’. “After the experiment was completed, most of the guards said that they enjoyed the power. Some of the others said that they had no idea of what they were capable. Everyone in the experiment was surprised at the results as well as saying, It was degrading.

This paper explores the topic of mental health within prisons and how it affects the inmates. The report of my findings were through research of twelve articles, two credible website sources, and a published textbook.

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.

Everyday correctional officials work to deal with mental health inmates. Often hotly debated, many search for ways to work with this growing population. Glaze and Bonczar (2009) estimate around 2.3 million people are incarcerated within the US and of those, 20 percent suffer from some form of mental disorder. Even with such a high number, the rate of mental illnesses within the prison system is on the climb. Many of these inmates will remain incarcerated and receive little to no treatment for their mental issues. This essay, will look at the practices associated when dealing with mental illness and discuss the strategies on dealing with this growing issue.

They wore them down by the antics I mentioned above and I think the prisoners also came to the realization that there is nothing that can do to change their situation they have no authority or control. Although his experiment was viewed as controversial and iconic. I cannot in any way, shape or form justify a research permissible within the current ACJS ethical standards. I don’t believe any experiments could top the Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison experiment. How could you replicate or create an experiment similar to this one if there was no rules or guidelines to adhere by? By having no rules or guidelines is what made this experiment one of a kind and unique. Even by the ACJS ethical standards applied in my eyes, I still view it as unjust and unethical. I don’t believe that these standards should be altered so as to permit this type of research. I believe experiments like this have no place in Psychology. Despite the punishment, the individuals

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.

Those designated to enact the role of a prisoner, were arrested by the Palo Alto police department, obliged to wear chains and prison attire, and were transported to the basement of the Stanford psychology department, which was transformed into a makeshift prison. Furthermore, various guards became increasingly aggressive, resulting in the experiment becoming uncontrollable. Within six days, riots broke out, psychological distresses were showcased by certain prisoners, and unruly punishment was given to the prisoners. These irrational and disreputable incidents, caused the experiment to end abruptly.

It is no secret that roughly half of the inmate population within the correctional system and the criminal justice system suffer from some form of mental illness or mental disorder. The court systems are currently treating correctional facilities more like psychiatric institutions. Because of this, society has formed stigmatizations around the correctional system and the individuals within it. There is a collective on beliefs and values about mental illness within society and their stigmatizations. This paper will demonstrate an understanding of these stigmatizations and the impact it has not only on the individual, but the corrections system in how to deal with the individual and their mental illness.

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

"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 ethical theory of utilitarianism and the perspective on relativism, of prison labor along with the relativism on criminal behavior of individuals incarcerated are two issues that need to be addressed. Does the utilitarianism of prisoner’s right laws actually protect them? Or are the unethical actions of the international and states right laws exploiting the prison labor? Unethical procedures that impact incarcerated individuals and correctional staff, the relativism of respect as people and not just prisoner’s; the safety of all inmates and correctional staff, are all issues worth continuous reflection.

This way was just as effective as physically harming them. From the very beginning the guards needed to assert their power and authority so it gives the impression of a real prison and makes the experiment as real as possible, they succeeded. They brought in a priest who heard confessions from prisoners and when he listened to the mock prisoners even he began to think it was a real prison and he said that the responses that he heard were similar to real prisoners who had just been imprisoned.

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

Our society tends to jump to conclusions and make assumptions of prisoners. Despite what they have committed and how severe it may be they are still human. We look at them as if they are inhumane because they are in prison. They still deserve some of the rights that they had before being convicted. I’m not saying that I am okay with the crimes they have committed but I am okay with them having a little more of their basic rights.