I had never heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment before today’s reading, and after exploring the website and reading all about it, I am in shock of how successful they were at putting together a true prison simulation. The overall goal of this experiment was not to create a “literal prison,” but to create a “functional simulation of a prison.” This led to a few differences in how the prison was run and how the prisoners were treated. For example, in order to produce the real feeling of male prisoners feeling “humiliated” and “emasculated,” the prisoners had to wear dresses as their uniforms, when in reality prisoners typically have some form of a pantsuit. The prisoners were also forced to wear a chain on their foot, which is uncommon in prisons today, in order to “remind prisoners of the oppressiveness of their environment.” Even with these slight changes, I wonder how the results of the experiment may vary from real life prison. I understand why they had to implement new measures such as these, however why were they not simply allowed to wear a pantsuit without a chain on their ankle as normal prisoners are today?

I found it interesting how quickly the experiment turned into a simulation of what seemed to be a more realistic prison after the prisoners held their retaliation after only their first day. This “rebellion” turned the overwatching guards into annoyed, threatening guards rather instantly. The guards were not required to hold anything back in their punishments, even forcing the prisoners to do push-ups, which was found to be a punishment used to torture inmates of Nazi concentration camps. The guards then began asserting privileges to different groups of prisoners at different times. According to the website, this tactic can be used to confuse leadership and turn prisoners against each other over who has the ability to have privileges at what times. I wonder if these tactics are truly used in real prison, as I thought it was typical of guards to harshly punish any prisoner who stepped out of line, not granting any privileges for a very long time.