Kelly Carl-Clayton

2/25/2015
Psy-211 Writing #3
A Prison by Any Other Name

Have you ever been in prison, or do you know someone that has been in prison? Most of us
know very little about the effects of spending time in prison. We all have more than likely read a
book or seen a movie about prisons. You have not seen or thought of anything that could have
prepared you for the real thing. Most people are sure that prison is not a place that they would
like to stay at any time or for more than just to see it. The hypothesis is to see what kind of effect
it had on people when they placed them in prison.
The method of the study was a real-life situation; the study of people and their reactions of
their life in prison. The challenge for this researcher was the method used. The research used
must be correlational so that it can be observe in their environment and be able to be controlled
as needed. They gathered information on some prisoners and guards that are still working and
some released inmates. Then they tried to make a conclusions? Based on these accounts. Were
their behaviors from being locked up, or did they come in to the prisons acting this way? Is being
in prison what causes this behavior? Does prison change people, or are the people in the prison
system already different going into prison?
Phillip Zimbardo. And his associates, conducted a study on the campus and they used the
basement of the psychology building of the campus. Zimbardo was testing his belief that the

who you-are you need to find out.(Hock,R,2013) Is it our internal, dispositional nature?
Powerful situations can overcome their tendencies and lead us to behaviors that are very different
from our normal. The researchers did not come to formulate any specific hypotheses.
They randomly assigned the role of the guards or the prisoners the researches. The method
was an experimental method, and there was prison or jail was created. They tried to simulate a
real prison experience and they even consulted an ex-convict who had been incarcerated for 17
years (Hock, 2013, p 280). The prison had to be well built because the study was planned to at
least two weeks. To make it more real special cell doors were constructed with vertical bars for
door windows and they created individual cells. The enclosed hallway that ran along the cell
rooms was the prison yard. The prisoners would be allowed out of their cells to eat and move
around. There was a small closet that would be designated as the solitary room for inmates that
were being trouble makers, rebellious, or disrespectful. The bathroom was down the hallway and
the only way they could use it was to lead to it only if they were lead to it blindfolded. The
prison was equipped with hidden random observation cameras and intercom systems. Researcher
were allowed to hear and see the inmates for their experiments.
Try to put yourself into the mindset of the participants. They placed a wanted ad, offering
$15.00 a day at that time. If it was now-a- days it would be about $75.00. To be sure the
participants were aware what they were getting into they all had to read and sign the paperwork.
They were each told that there were special natures of the study and that they might experience
some violations of their personal privacy and civil rights. There was a total of 24 normal college
men that were needed and they would not at this time think of using a women for a study like
this. There was a group of 100 volunteers that applied and only 24 men were selected.

The men that were selected were randomly divided into two groups the first ones being the s
and that was the prisoners and then the second were the and they were the guards. No one was
given any instructions or training and no one was in preparation for what laid ahead of them.
The goal of the study was to observe, record and analyze the behavior of the prisoners and the
guards. Several days after the initial screening the participants we were surprised when at their
homes on a Sunday morning, a real police officer showed up at their door and each one was
arrested for armed robbery, searched, hand cuffed, and taken to the jail with the cars lights and
sirens on.
They were each booked and fingerprinted, and thrown blindfolded into a holding cell. Later
they were all transported, still blindfolded, to the mock prison. When the prisoners arrived at the
jail, the ones that were selected to be the guards, stripped and used aerosol spray on each one of
them. They were given a uniform and on the uniforms there were four numbers on the back and
that was how each prisoner was known, not by their names. They were each given a set of rubber
sandals and a nylon stocking to be on their head at all times to simulate that they had their head
shaved. There was chain wrapped around each ones ankle with a padlock. The inmates were
assigned three to each cell: each one had a cot assigned and a blanket.
The guards unlike the prisoners, who were required to be in the prison 24/7, worked eight
hour shifts there was three men guards per shift. The men had to live on the unit and lived a
normal live when not on duty. They wore prison guard uniforms with nightsticks, although they
were not allowed to strike prisoners. They also were each given a pair of reflective sunglasses.
This was to try to keep their appearance anonymous so that the prisoners did not know who the t
This is one of the most researched discussed, and analyzed studies ever done in the history of
were profound and alarming. This goes to show you that, were you to give a person a job like a

guard. Their thinking changes just because they are preforming a different job then they normally
do this makes them feel like there better than the prisoners because they were all chosen to be the
guards.
In the table that was analyzed in the study, If was really surprising how some of the guards
responded to the poisoners. The chart showed some of the things that the guards did and then
they listed what the response of the prisoners. The personalities of the prisoners and guards
seemed to change really fast. Within a day real life blurred, and the role play of prisoners and
guards all changed. A lifetime of human values suspended.
We were horrified because it seemed that the guards were really enjoying the power of their
position and taking pleasure in cruelty, while the prisoners thought only of escaping and of the
hatred they had for the guards. After several days, many of the poisoners were pleading to be
released, but release was denied at that time. There was an emotional breakdown and stress of
five prisoners. The emotion they had was that they had become very depressed and refused to
eat, they had to be released from the study.
As of 2006, 2.2 million prisoners in the US prisons continue to be failed social experiments
using isolation of offenders rather than any basic rehabilitation that might reduce persistently
high rates of mortality. In reports after the war Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, we have
heard about and seen in graphic details the horrendous abuses and torture of prisoners carried out
by the guards. Zimbardo had planned for a two week stay but, yet he decided to call it off after
only six days, because the situation was so powerful that it had morphed, in alarming ways, into
reality

Legal term used to argue that a mentally ill person who has committed a crime should not be
held responsible for his or her actions because they were unable to understand the difference
between right and wrong at the time of the offense. And is it going to prison that causes problems
and is a proven fact that being detained in a cell seems to more than likely cause their mental
problem to get worse. Ciccarelli.S(page534)2013
I felt that it was really weird that someones job would make them feel that they can change
the whole way they deal with life. I think that the prison guards need to be given more schooling
and maybe some more psych courses and stress to them that they not allow their job to change
their way of life. We are now putting more and more people in our US prisons compared to any
other country. About two million Americans are currently living behind bars in jail, or prisons.
California now spends more money on having people in prisons then they do on funding people
in higher education. Washington has shown how poverty creates prisoners and prisoners in turn
fuel in to poverty, not just for individuals but for entire demographic groups. In 1980, one in 10
black high school dropouts end up in prison. Given the staggering scale of black incarceration
that 30% of black males are high school drop-out. When prisoners are released they are more
than likely to live in poverty, end-up on welfare and to suffer from serious emotional problems.
They have time finding a job or holding one down. I have thinking about what you asked how I
was going to use the research findings? And my thought are that I am going to encourage the
teens to stay in school and get a high school education and if they have drug problem we can
work it out and find them help. I am hoping even if I only get to touch a very few in my life time
that I can make a defines.

Hock, R. (@2013) Forty Studies That Changed Psychology, 7th Edition. Boston: Pearson
Education Inc
Ciccarelli, S Psychology(@2013), (special Edition for Delta Psychology)Boston: Pearson page
534)
Abrmsky, S.Toxic Persons- Oct, 8 2010