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What a widely attacked experiment got right on the harmful effects of prisons

Photo of prison
Even the most humanely designed prisons have negative effects on the people living and working inside (photo by Shutterstock)

The Stanford Prison Experiment is one of the few scientific studies to enter the public consciousness through , , , and .

Recently, it has been making headlines in a very bad way.

In 1971, Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo . He randomly assigned normal, healthy, emotionally stable male college students (without criminal records) to be 鈥減risoners鈥 or 鈥済uards鈥 in a fake prison.

Newspaper advertisement for participants for the Stanford Prison Experiment  (PrisonExp.org)

Within six days, Zimbardo ended the experiment. The 鈥済uards鈥 were torturing the 鈥減risoners,鈥 and the 鈥減risoners鈥 were rebelling or experiencing psychological breakdown.

In news articles, the Stanford experiment has been and 鈥.鈥 It has been for experimenter interference, faked behaviour from participants and for research design problems, among other things.

These serious critiques have generated in academic circles and in news articles about what, if anything, we can learn from the experiment.

And yet, as someone who studies prisons, I鈥檓 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.

What the research says

Living and working in prison is .

Some people are better at repelling these effects than others. Even so, and suffer from high rates of and other devastating conditions. For many prisoners, these conditions continue after prison and can be .

We have long known that prisons are damaging places for both prisoners and prison workers. In his 1956 book, , Princeton sociology professor Gresham Sykes explained that incarceration deeply injured prisoners鈥 dignity and self-concept. He also described how prison officers became 鈥渃orrupted鈥 by the prison environment with its contradictory imperatives, impossible-to-enforce rules and necessary compromises.

In the 60 years since Sykes鈥檚 book, research in diverse prison settings and many of his findings.

The role of prison design

Storstr酶m Prison, which opened in Denmark in 2017, is said to be the world鈥檚 most humane prison  (C.F. M酶ller/Torbin Eskerod)

These insights extend beyond contemporary prisons in the United States. Prisons in , and , known for their humaneness, also cause harm.

Indeed, , but not destroy, the prison鈥檚 negative impacts. But , in many Western countries, the main goal when designing prisons has been containment and security, not prisoners鈥 physical and mental health.

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 , are a design.

Prisoners 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 including .

Not just prisoners

Prison staff are also affected. The history of American imprisonment is also filled with examples of people with good intentions becoming 鈥渃orrupted鈥 by the prison.

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 (photo by Matt Rourke/Associated Press)

笔别苍苍蝉测濒惫补苍颈补鈥檚 opened in 1829. Progressive Philadelphia penal reformers designed Eastern to be more humane than other prisons, with prisoners鈥 physical and mental health in mind. They implemented a routine 鈥 combining work, education, mentorship and outdoor exercise 鈥 to benefit both prisoners and society. Finally, they sought to protect prisoners鈥 identities so they could re-enter society without stigma.

Within five years of the prison鈥檚 opening, however, the penal reformers, now prison administrators, had betrayed their humanitarian goals.

They , out of necessity or convenience, so the prison functioned smoothly. In the process, they sacrificed the regime鈥檚 humanitarian and prisoner-focused elements.

Eastern鈥檚 administrators , including what we now call waterboarding, held misbehaving prisoners after their sentences had expired and justified these actions as beneficial to prisoners.

These gaps between theory and practice, including the use of torture punishments, were common at in the 19th century and into the 20th. engaged in similar malfeasance despite their apparently genuine commitment to humanitarian values.

The situation was even more dire at prisons that were explicitly and .

Beyond the Stanford experiment

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 鈥淪tanford Prison.鈥

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. (photo by Bob Schutz/AP)

It does happen 鈥  and the retaking of are graphic illustrations of how prison can unleash the worst of human nature with terrible consequences 鈥 but such extreme cases remain rare. Prisons鈥 negative effects are typically less dramatic and do less to capture the public imagination.

There is something about prisons that is damaging. But what is it?

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.The Conversation

 is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga.   

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons licence. Read the .

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