Comparing Abu Ghraib And Stanford Prison Experiment

Jesus Guadarrama
Ms. LaPorta
English 100
15 December 2011
Hidden side of mankind Throughout history, execrable acts of corrupt human behavior have stunned mankind. While one might not see themselves capable of committing acts of torture towards others, and possibly killing another human being, experiments and real historical events have proven that there is a gruesome side within human beings expressed when placed in a position of power or control. Those who are not in that position expect those who are to act with a moral conscience, but it is easier said than done. The Abu Ghraib scandal and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment demonstrate the powerful role that a situation can play in altering human behavior. Abu Ghraib and the
Stanford Prison Experiment have a simple thing in common, guard and prisoner. Regardless of the authenticity of the prisons, they both had the same principle, control the prison. Abu Ghraib is located west of Baghdad in Iraq and was used by the U.S. for detention center housing terrorist and criminals believed to be a threat. The whereabouts of Abu Ghraib became globally known as a scandal erupted as pictures of American military police, depicting their abuse and torture on Iraqi detainees flooded the internet and newspapers. The photographs became public in April, 2004 showing officers frightening Iraqi detainees by having them stand naked as a dog or on several occasions multiple dogs barked at them, whether they were bitten remains unknown. Photographs that caused a major scandal where those of the soldiers having the Iraqi’s stand in sexual positions, making them look as if they were having sex with one another. In the background of this absurdity, the smiling faces of soldiers are seen. These pictures where shown to be humiliating, cruel, and out of line. Something had to be done. The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. Between May 2004 and March 2006, eleven soldiers were convicted in courts martial, sentenced to military prison, and dishonorably discharged from service. Two soldiers, Specialist Charles Graner, and his former fiancée, Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten years and three years in prison, respectively, in trials ending on January 14, 2005 and September 26, 2005. The commanding officer of all Iraq detention facilities, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, was reprimanded for dereliction of duty and then demoted to the rank of Colonel on May 5, 2005. Similar form of humiliation was exposed to the world thirty years earlier by the world renowned psychologist, Philip G. Zimbardo. In his Stanford prison experiment, Zimbardo would test people’s response to an oppressive regime. The guards and prisoners were all volunteers getting paid 15 dollars a day to participate in this experiment. The role of guard or prisoner was chosen at random. The guards were told to maintain order, but not use physical violence. With that said, the way they ran the prison was up to them. The experiment was made to be as realistic as possible. In the morning, cops went to the houses of those chosen to play the role of prisoner and arrested them and took them to the Stanford prison. Once there, they went through the procedures that any prisoner would go through, such as finger printing, change of clothes, etc. The first day, nothing out of the ordinary occurred. But to the surprise of everyone, the prisoners revolted against the guards the following day. The guards had to do what they seem suitable for the situation. Within six days, the guards came to play the role of guards, and treated the prisoners as anything but humans, as the guards at Abu Ghraib did. The guards at Stanford were always thinking of ways to make the lives of the prisoners a living hell. Not exactly with those intentions, but to the prisoners it sure seemed so. They would constantly wake them during the night, make them do push-ups, sing, and anything to make sure they knew they were not in control. When Professor Christina Maslach saw what was going on, she accused Zimbardo for the suffering of the young men and advised him to put an end to it. The experiment was supposed to last two weeks, but after six days, it had to be put to an end. The process of objectifying prisoners is done to make prisoners feel anonymous.
At Abu Ghraib, the detainees were perceived as the enemy likewise, the prisoners at Stanford were also seen as a threat. At Stanford, guards felt the need to maintain everything under control. Upon arrival, the prisoners at Stanford were stripped down, given a dress as a uniform, and given ID numbers. Each prisoner had to be referred to and can only refer himself by number. Unlike the military, a stocking cap was placed on the head as a substitute for having the prisoner’s hair shaved off. The prisoners were to wear a heavy chain on there right ankle at all times. The use of a dress makes the male prisoners feel emasculated. Many of the prisoners began to hold themselves differently, walking and sitting more like a woman than like a man. The chain on their ankles was a constant reminder of their environment. In addition, the stocking cap that they were ordered to wear minimized the individuality. Many tend to express their individuality through hair style. As done in the military, removing the hair is part of the process of making everyone conform to a different from of authority. In Abu Ghraib, there was less of a need to objectify a detainee as the environment surrounding them already does so. Like in Stanford and any other normal prison, the detainees at Abu Ghraib were made to wear a uniform. The Stanford prison experiment put a lot of emphasis on making sure that the prisoners felt a sense
of objectification. Doing so makes the prisons a lot easier to run. When one feels less of an individual and more like part of a group, they tend to follow with what the rest is doing. If guards are able to maintain most of the prisoners under control, many will follow in the same footsteps. Objectifying prisoners is the first step in taking away their basic sense of individuality. Unlike Stanford, the presence and cruel treatment at Abu Ghraib is a constant never ending reminder that they are under the control of the guards. At Stanford, the control was being enforced through many forms of dictatorship, but at Abu Ghraib, the constant humiliation and harassment made it clear to the detainees that the guards were the ones with all the control. What differentiates both prisons from one another is simply, location. At Stanford, the presence of being in a confined room, with the bare necessities makes the prisoners feel at ease when compared to the detainees at Abu Ghraib. In Abu Ghraib the environment and even the name of the place scared locals. Abu Ghraib already had a horrifying history behind it. The guards at Abu Ghraib took the role they were being placed into as the guards at Stanford did with their prison. With a different environment comes different behavior as “human behavior is more influenced by things outside of one than inside. ' ' (Understanding behavior, par. 1). Prisoners at Abu Ghraib were treated with no respect. They were stripped naked and forced to lie in positions as to make them look to have sex with one another. Many were scared with the use of dogs. Soldiers at times would have detainees lie naked in uncomfortable positions for hours. They were treated like dogs, as a picture shows an Iraqi lying on the floor with a dog collar around his neck. Shock waves were being placed on the detainee’s penis and every part of the body as a form of torture. Many Iraqi’s were deprived of sleep, and lastly as shown by many pictures, Iraqi’s were made to feel drowned as a bag was placed over their head and then putting their heads in the water. Iraqi’s were beaten physically and mentally in every way imaginable by the guards. The guards at Abu Ghraib caused controversy because people did not know how the detainees were being treated, not even the military was aware of the torture being inflicted on the detainees. Guards at Abu Ghraib “claimed that they had been asked to soften up the prisoners for interrogation” (Kennedy 2007). Being told so put them in the same position that the guards at Stanford were in. Both guards were left to treat the prisoners as they wish with certain limitations. The guards at Stanford were only told to not use physical violence, and the guards at Abu Ghraib were told to “soften up” the detainees. That leaves a lot of options open when it comes to treating the prisoners. Both guards took it into their own hands to act with them as they wish. The reason for mistreating the prisoners and detainees isn’t based on the fact that they like to treat them badly, but instead it’s that they “are proud of doing a good job” (Milgram, par. 100). At Stanford, when they took the role of guard there demeanor changed. The uniform transformed them into guards and diminished their role of college students. The use of sunglasses took away a sense of humanity when the prisoners looked at them. The sunglasses will cover their eyes, making it impossible to see any form of emotion through the eyes of the guards. Not only did the appearance of the guards changed, but so did their attitude. Guards think of ways to break down the prisoners. The “worst abuses occurred during the night shift” (Zimbardo, par. 12) making it hard to escape the reality of being imprisoned, even when they sleep. The reason why guards acted cruel to the prisoners in ways that one wouldn’t normally treat others is based on the role they felt they needed to play. The feeling of needing to play a role wasn’t only placed on the guards, but on the prisoners as well. A perfect example of this is shown with prisoner #819. When he asked to leave, guards made the others prisoners chant “Prisoner 819 did a bad thing.” Prisoner 819 wanted to go back in the prison and prove to the others he wasn’t what they accused him of. He felt the need to be a good prisoner, just at the guards felt the need to be good guards. As did the guards at Stanford felt the need to fulfill their duty as a guard, so did the guards at Abu Ghraib. Guards felt it was their duty to soften up and interrogate prisoners any way possible. The guards often did common things that are traditionally done with prisoners. They would strip them down and insult them. What the guards did, to make them feel like they were doing a good job is take it to an extreme. They felt that by torturing them, they would get answers, and many times they did. Doing so only encourage them to keep doing it and try more disturbing things. The guards at Abu Ghraib took on the role of the hardcore interrogator and guard. To any other prisoners, those same guards would not have been as cruel as they were to the detainees in Iraq. Being where they were put them in a different mindset. They knew that the people who they were dealing with were not people to mess around with. Instead of being the passive guards that many guards tend to be, they took their job as guards as serious as they could knowing that they were with detainees who are not meant to be underestimated. When being placed in a situation when one has to be someone they aren’t, it is human nature to want to do a good job. It was out of their control why they acted the way they acted. Human nature can make humans act in ways that isn’t formally expressed on a day to day basis. Psychologist Stanley Milgram was able to show this to the world through his Electric shock experiment. In the experiment, Milgram put ordinary people to a test. He wanted to see if an ordinary human being would administer potentially deadly shock waves to another human being when told to do so. He tested ordinary Americans by making them play the role of teacher. They would ask someone a question and if they answered it wrong then they would get shocked. The shocked ranged from 15volts to 450volts. What the teacher didn’t know is that the person receiving the volts was actually an actor, and no shock waves were actually being administered. The results shocked the world. Two thirds of volunteers were prepared to administer potentially fatal shocks when encouraged to do so by what they perceived as a trust worthy authority figure. The results showed that decent American citizens were capable of committing deadly acts against their conscience when someone else, but themselves “accepts all responsibility?” (Milgram, par. 68). When the experiment was over, and the volunteers learned what was really going on, they were disgusted by the “revelation of their dark potential” (Toole, unit 43). The reason why two thirds of volunteers kept going is because they didn’t see any consequences with what they were doing. Many of them thought that if something went wrong, that they had nothing to worry about because the person in the white coat told them that it wasn’t their responsibility. All volunteers were told that all responsibility was not on them. Human nature is not to be blamed, and that is what made these men go to an extreme that they wouldn’t normally go to if the blame were to be placed on them. Milgram’s experiment proves that when responsibility is placed on the person in charge and not the one doing the action, it is a lot easier to do something and not think twice about it. Milgram’s experiment gives some reason to why the guards at Abu Ghraib and Stanford treated prisoners the way they did. When the guards at Abu Ghraib and Stanford mistreated the prisoners and detainees, they were told by commanding officers or the prison superintendent to take control of the prison. The guards at Abu Ghraib insisted at their trials “that they were just following orders” (Kennedy 2007). The responsibility was shifted to a higher power instead of themselves. The alteration in responsibility along with the environment in which one is placed are key factors that can and have changed human beings when placed in a position of power or control. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib and in the Stanford prison were seen as the enemy to the guards.
They were treated a lot worse in Abu Ghraib, only because the guards had permission to do so. If it wasn’t for the limits set on the guards at Stanford, the way the prisoners were treated could have been just as bad as the detainees at Abu Ghraib were. Many guards at Abu Ghraib saw their treatment towards the prisoners as “bragging rights” (Kounalakis, par. 15), making them seem as better guards to the others. Many guards “turned a blind eye” (Alkadry and Witt 149) when the torture of the detainees occurred. If it wasn’t for those who were not taken away by the atmosphere of the place they were in, the torture that occurred at Abu Ghraib would remain unknown. The guards at Stanford were quick to adjust to their new positions as guards. They went into it as if knowing what to do. Human nature has a way of adapting to a new environment when made to do so. Being in a different culture can alter the way one acts. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib were in a completely differ part of the world then from what they were used too. The environment changed them as human beings and made them act in ways they wouldn’t normally act. As so did the change of persona placed on the guards at Stanford change them as humans and did the same to them as to the guards at Abu
Ghraib. Abu Ghraib and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiments show the cruel side of human beings. In Abu Ghraib and Stanford, the guards did everything imaginable to embarrass, humiliate, and torture the prisoners. Both examples show how an environment and a change in persona can alter the ways human act towards others. Of course, the guards would have not treated the prisoners the way they did if the responsibility was placed on them. Human nature is to not be blamed, and when blame is removed from one, the actions being committed can and have surprised the world. The Abu Ghraib scandal and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment demonstrate the powerful role that a situation can play in altering human behavior. Everyone is capable of committing acts similar to those committed at Abu Ghraib and Stanford to other human beings under certain circumstances. All it takes is a role, the right environment, and a shift in responsibility, and one can turn from an ordinary citizen to an abusing potential threat to mankind.

Works Cited
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