Ashley Rubin / en What a widely attacked experiment got right on the harmful effects of prisons /news/what-widely-attacked-experiment-got-right-harmful-effects-prisons <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">What a widely attacked experiment got right on the harmful effects of prisons</span> <div class="field field--name-field-featured-picture field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <img loading="eager" srcset="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2018-10-03-conversation-prisons-resized.jpg?h=58088d8b&amp;itok=Nmpan7KP 370w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_740/public/2018-10-03-conversation-prisons-resized.jpg?h=58088d8b&amp;itok=lrYp7RFP 740w, /sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_1110/public/2018-10-03-conversation-prisons-resized.jpg?h=58088d8b&amp;itok=FFqT_8iV 1110w" sizes="(min-width:1200px) 1110px, (max-width: 1199px) 80vw, (max-width: 767px) 90vw, (max-width: 575px) 95vw" width="740" height="494" src="/sites/default/files/styles/news_banner_370/public/2018-10-03-conversation-prisons-resized.jpg?h=58088d8b&amp;itok=Nmpan7KP" alt="Photo of prison"> </div> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"><span>noreen.rasbach</span></span> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"><time datetime="2018-10-03T11:03:41-04:00" title="Wednesday, October 3, 2018 - 11:03" class="datetime">Wed, 10/03/2018 - 11:03</time> </span> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-field-cutline-long field--type-text-long field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Cutline</div> <div class="field__item">Even the most humanely designed prisons have negative effects on the people living and working inside (photo by Shutterstock)</div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-author-reporters field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/authors-reporters/ashley-rubin" hreflang="en">Ashley Rubin</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-topic field--type-entity-reference field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">Topic</div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/topics/global-lens" hreflang="en">Global Lens</a></div> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-story-tags field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden field__items"> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/global" hreflang="en">Global</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/humanities" hreflang="en">Humanities</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/research-innovation" hreflang="en">Research &amp; Innovation</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/sociology" hreflang="en">Sociology</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/conversation" hreflang="en">The Conversation</a></div> <div class="field__item"><a href="/news/tags/u-t-mississauga" hreflang="en">91łÔąĎ Mississauga</a></div> </div> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the few scientific studies to enter the public consciousness through <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1973/04/08/archives/a-pirandellian-prison-the-mind-is-a-formidable-jailer.html">mainstream news</a>, <a href="http://www.prisonexp.org/quiet-rage/">documentaries</a>, <a href="http://www.prisonexp.org/book/">popular books</a>, <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil#t-841723">a TED talk</a> and <a href="http://www.stanfordprisonexperimentfilm.com">a major motion picture</a>.</p> <p>Recently, it has been making headlines in a very bad way.</p> <p>In 1971, Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo <a href="http://pdf.prisonexp.org/ijcp1973.pdf">sought to evaluate the prison’s impact on human behaviour</a>. He randomly assigned normal, healthy, emotionally stable male college students (without criminal records) to be “prisoners” or “guards” in a fake prison.</p> <figure class="align-right zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238786/original/file-20181001-195282-nfewn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip"></a> <figcaption><em><span class="caption">Newspaper advertisement for participants for the Stanford Prison Experiment&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><span class="attribution"><span class="source">(PrisonExp.org)</span></span></em></figcaption> </figure> <p>Within six days, Zimbardo ended the experiment. The “guards” were torturing the “prisoners,” and the “prisoners” were rebelling or experiencing psychological breakdown.</p> <p>In news articles, the Stanford experiment has been <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/13/17449118/stanford-prison-experiment-fraud-psychology-replication">“debunked” and “exposed as a fraud.” Its findings have been declared “very wrong”</a> and “<a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4273976/stanford-prison-experiment-lies-acting-good-evil/">fake</a>.” It has been <a href="https://medium.com/s/trustissues/the-lifespan-of-a-lie-d869212b1f62">further criticized</a> for experimenter interference, faked behaviour from participants and for research design problems, among other things.</p> <p>These serious critiques have generated <a href="http://www.prisonexp.org/links/#responses">much discussion</a> in academic circles and in news articles about what, if anything, we can learn from the experiment.</p> <p>And yet, as someone who studies prisons, I’m struck by how much the Stanford Prison Experiment got right. A wealth of other research suggests prisons have serious detrimental effects on prisoners and prison workers alike.</p> <h3>What the research says</h3> <p>Living and working in prison is <a href="https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1023%2FA%3A1009514731657.pdf">extremely stressful and demoralizing</a>.</p> <p>Some people are better at repelling these effects than others. Even so, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215036616301420#!">prisoners</a> and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/modern-prison-paradox/social-effects-of-prison-work/80EECCDD9ED05BE17408B9989A758C56">prison workers</a> suffer from high rates of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673602077401">depression,</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/j.1440-1614.2005.01589.x">anxiety,</a> <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/449299">suicide,</a> <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cbm.653">PTSD</a> and other devastating conditions. For many prisoners, these conditions continue after prison and can be <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/681301">worsened by the transition into the free world</a>.</p> <p>We have long known that prisons are damaging places for both prisoners and prison workers. In his 1956 book, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/8390.html"><em>Society of Captives</em></a>, Princeton sociology professor Gresham Sykes explained that incarceration deeply injured prisoners’ dignity and self-concept. He also described how prison officers became “corrupted” by the prison environment with its contradictory imperatives, impossible-to-enforce rules and necessary compromises.</p> <p>In the 60 years since Sykes’s book, research in diverse prison settings <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474511422172">has confirmed</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2012.01307.x">expanded upon</a> many of his findings.</p> <h3>The role of prison design</h3> <figure class="align-left zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238787/original/file-20181001-195278-jebfd0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip"></a> <figcaption><em><span class="caption">Storstrøm Prison, which opened in Denmark in 2017, is said to be the world’s most humane prison&nbsp;</span>&nbsp;<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(C.F. Møller/Torbin Eskerod)</span></span></em></figcaption> </figure> <p>These insights extend beyond contemporary prisons in the United States. Prisons in <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474513504799">Norway</a>, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362480612468935">Sweden</a> and <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474517737273">Denmark</a>, known for their humaneness, also cause harm.</p> <p>Indeed, <a href="https://prisonspaces.wordpress.com">smart designs can lessen</a>, but not destroy, the prison’s negative impacts. But <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814717196/">since the 1970s</a>, in many Western countries, the main goal when designing prisons has been containment and security, not prisoners’ physical and mental health.</p> <p>Popping up in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s, supermaximum security prisons (Supermaxes), which contain prisoners in solitary confinement in small concrete cells for <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300211467/237">23 hours a day</a>, are a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128702239239">particularly harmful</a> design.</p> <p>Prisoners <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisoners-solitude-and-time-9780199684489?cc=ca&amp;lang=en&amp;">react differently</a> to these Supermax prison regimes. Some are able to withstand the conditions, others break down within hours of their arrival. We do not yet fully understand why people react differently, but we do know that Supermax prisons have an array of <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-criminol-032317-092326">negative impacts on prisoners’ mental health</a> including <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0011128702239239?casa_token=dhS6f9U28G8AAAAA:fMHmV9kgKpUlFgW20LHXjr-kYVUk44hkiIIJ1dPtJTfVlRoZiaH-ZkTeopbYrcYrNrLO-yqnCxQG">hallucinations, self-harm and permanent psychological damage</a>.</p> <h3>Not just prisoners</h3> <p>Prison staff are also affected. The history of American imprisonment is also filled with examples of people with good intentions becoming “corrupted” by the prison.</p> <figure class="align-center "><img alt src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238785/original/file-20181001-195250-111qb4m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"> <figcaption><em><span class="caption">In this April 12, 2016 photo, a visitor takes a photograph of a cellblock at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. The nearly two-century-old penitentiary is now a historic site&nbsp;</span><span class="attribution"><span class="source">(photo by Matt Rourke/Associated Press)</span></span></em></figcaption> </figure> <p>Pennsylvania’s <a href="https://www.easternstate.org/">Eastern State Penitentiary</a> opened in 1829. Progressive Philadelphia penal reformers designed Eastern to be more humane than other prisons, with prisoners’ physical and mental health in mind. They implemented a routine – combining work, education, mentorship and outdoor exercise – to benefit both prisoners and society. Finally, they sought to protect prisoners’ identities so they could re-enter society without stigma.</p> <p>Within five years of the prison’s opening, however, the penal reformers, now prison administrators, had betrayed their humanitarian goals.</p> <p>They <a href="https://ashleytrubin.com/current-projects/the-deviant-prison-book-project/">bent the rules</a>, out of necessity or convenience, so the prison functioned smoothly. In the process, they sacrificed the regime’s humanitarian and prisoner-focused elements.</p> <p>Eastern’s administrators <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807856314/laboratories-of-virtue/">authorized torture</a>, including what we now call waterboarding, held misbehaving prisoners after their sentences had expired <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lsi.12158">until they apologized</a> and justified these actions as beneficial to prisoners.</p> <p>These gaps between theory and practice, including the use of torture punishments, were common at <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/crisis-of-imprisonment/6D7012F71C47B46BF7BCAAD05534FBCB">other American prisons</a> in the 19<sup>th</sup> century and into the 20<sup>th</sup>. <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814766385/">Other penal reformers–turned-administrators</a> engaged in similar malfeasance despite their apparently genuine commitment to humanitarian values.</p> <p>The situation was even more dire at prisons that were explicitly <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=17521">designed to be punitive</a> and <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312680473">lacked Eastern’s humanitarian motivations</a>.</p> <h3>Beyond the Stanford experiment</h3> <p>Even including these past failures, modern prisons rarely devolve as quickly and decidedly into a den of overt torture and serious mental breakdown as seen in the “Stanford Prison.”</p> <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/238783/original/file-20181001-195269-vfcbsx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a> <figcaption><em><span class="caption">In this Sept. 10, 1971 photo, inmates wearing cloaks and football helmets stand behind bars in a corridor leading to D block as they begin negotiatiations with New York State officials after a prison uprising at Attica State Prison, in Attica, N.Y.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(photo by Bob Schutz/AP)</span></span></em></figcaption> </figure> <p>It does happen –&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib">the Abu Ghraib torture scandal</a> and the retaking of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/178182/blood-in-the-water-by-heather-ann-thompson/9781400078240/">Attica Prison following the 1971 riot</a> are graphic illustrations of how prison can unleash the worst of human nature with terrible consequences – but such extreme cases remain rare. Prisons’ negative effects are typically less dramatic and do less to capture the public imagination.</p> <p>There is something about prisons that is damaging. But what is it?</p> <p>Even the most humanely designed prisons have negative effects on the people living and working inside. And that is the deep truth we are still seeking to understand and the Stanford Prison Experiment effectively illustrates.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img alt="The Conversation" height="1" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103967/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important" width="1" loading="lazy"><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ashley-rubin-539429"><strong>Ashley Rubin</strong></a>&nbsp;is an assistant professor of sociology at the 91łÔąĎ Mississauga.&nbsp; &nbsp;</em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons licence. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-a-widely-attacked-experiment-got-right-on-the-harmful-effects-of-prisons-103967">original article</a>.</em></p> </div> <div class="field field--name-field-news-home-page-banner field--type-boolean field--label-above"> <div class="field__label">News home page banner</div> <div class="field__item">Off</div> </div> Wed, 03 Oct 2018 15:03:41 +0000 noreen.rasbach 144248 at