In a Florida prison, a mentally ill inmate dies after guards punish him by locking him in a scalding hot shower for well over an hour. At Rikers Island jail, a guard argues with a frail 52-year-old inmate, and proceeds to beat the man to death while two other guards hold him on the floor. The three guards then fabricate a story that the inmate assaulted them.
As state and federal investigations and lawsuits bring these abuses, and many others to public attention, we are horrified and repelled. How can someone do such things to another person? How could one guard look away, or cover up another’s vicious deeds? Then we recall the violent degradations that American Military Police Guards used against Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib Prison, all the while documenting their deeds with graphic images. Looking at these situations from the outside, we tell ourselves they must be evil people, bad apples; we could never lose our moral compass in such a way. Think again. It’s not that simple.
[For more of this story, written by Philip Zimbardo, go to https://medium.com/@pphilipzimbardo/the-stanford-prison-experiment-7a82dcd33492]
Comments (0)