Remembering Stanford
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Look, it paid $15.00 a day. I’m in college, how was I to refuse? Plus, they were just makeshift prison cells for voluntary “criminals.”
Degradation. We stripped the prisoners naked and sprayed them to cleanse them of their germs. This is okay, they’re volunteers, I kept on telling myself.
Uniforms. Sandals. Ankle Chains. ID numbers. In a matter of minutes, they changed from people to numbers. Men in dresses, al fresco. It was like a spell. They suddenly acted differently – like we took away their manliness.
After that, well, we were let loose. They wanted this, I thought. So we woke them up with whistles around 2 am. Push-ups for inappropriate behavior. It was harmless. Yeah, sometimes we’d have someone sit on their back or step on their backs, but it was harmless.
Ripped off numbers. Visible Hair. Barricades. Rebellion. It was the night guard’s fault, they were too easy on them. So we had to shoot them with carbon dioxide, strip them naked, and take away their beds. Ringleaders moved to isolation. We’re responsible guards, you see. We have to show them they were wrong.
We assigned one of the cells for those who didn’t rebel as much. We returned their beds, given good food, and were allowed to clean themselves. It was fair. They were model prisoners. The others didn’t get any of that, why should they? And then we switched them. Why? I didn’t know at first, too. But it worked. After that, none of them trusted each other.
No. 8621 started to cry his guts out. Later telling everybody that they can’t leave, Then he went crazy. So he was let go. Well, we wanted to assign an informant to his cell. The others were planning to escape, you see. But that didn’t pan out. We prepared all day to prevent it. Then it didn’t happen. It was infuriating. So we had them clean the toilet with their hands, it was just fair.
No. 819 didn’t want to talk to the priest. They had a priest visit the following day. He didn’t want to eat and saw a doctor instead. When he finally did talk to the priest, we had the other prisoners chant that no. 819 was a bad prisoner. Oh, I heard he was breaking down, wanting to go back and prove he wasn’t bad. But they let him go.
Anyway, they stopped the study soon after. Some lawyers got involved.
I bet you think you’d be compassionate. You’d call them by their name, help them, and treat them as people. You can claim that, and you know, maybe you will. I mean, some of us were. But you didn’t feel the power. I was somebody in that prison. They were scared of me. They wanted to be terrified. How can you say no when they clearly asked for it?