The Stanford Prison Experiment Essay Example for Free

The Stanford Prison Experiment Essay In August of 1971, Phillip Zimbardo constructed a mock correctional facility. Placing an ad in a local newspaper, and with over 70 responses, he conducted interviews with 70 male candidates across the U. S. and out of those 70 candidates 24 of them were sorted out through mental diseases, drug abuse, and psychological issues. With a pay of $15/a day, he divided the candidates, 9 guards and 9 prisoners. He constructed the basement floor at Stanford into a correctional facility taking the doors off hinges and replacing them with steel door with bars and cell numbers. Each prisoner was stripped and searched and sprayed, the same way as if they were going to a real prison. Each prisoner was given robes to wear with their own prisoner number on the back and on the front, and they could only go by prisoner numbers not by name. They also were given rubber slippers and chains wrapped around their ankles and hair nets as opposed to shaving their heads. There were three cells will three cots each, enough for the 9 prisoners. Each 8 hour shift had three guards each and even some on call for back up. The first day went well with no incident, the second day however the prisoners began to riot by taking off their hairnets, pulling off their numbers off their robes. Being outrages and infuriated the guards went into each cell stripped the prisoners, took their cots, and sprayed them with the fire extinguisher. The ringleader of the riot was put into solitary confinement by the guards. After only 36 hours, one prisoner #8612 then began to act crazy, to scream, to curse, to go into a rage that seemed out of control. It took quite a while before they became convinced that he was really suffering and that they had to release him. Guards forced the prisoners to repeat their assigned numbers in order to reinforce the idea that this was their new identity. Guards soon used these prisoner counts to harass the prisoners, using physical punishment such as protracted exercise for errors in the prisoner count. Sanitary conditions declined rapidly, exacerbated by the guards refusal to allow some prisoners to urinate or defecate anywhere but in a bucket placed in their cell. As punishment, the guards would not let the prisoners empty the sanitation bucket. Mattresses were a valued item in the prison, so the guards would punish prisoners by removing their mattresses, leaving them to sleep on concrete. Some prisoners were forced to be naked as a method of degradation. Several guards became increasingly cruel as the experiment continued; experimenters reported that approximately one-third of the guards exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. Most of the guards were upset when the experiment ended after only 6 days. The experiment ended when Zimbardo’s girlfriend, Christina Masalach, a graduate student there to conduct interviews, saw how bad the prisoners were being treated and how the conditions were. It was also said that some prisoners had experienced more abuse during the middle of the night as well as pornographic abuse from the guards. So, therefore the 2 week experiment ended in only 6 days.