I was really captivated by the Stanford Prison Experiment. I had heard about it in my previous classes (mainly the ethical issues with the experiment) but did not know many details. I think that the idea of the experiment was a good one; how does prison really change people? However, along with this comes the ethical issue of subjecting people to these experiments. But if this experiment was meant to simulate an actual prison, why can’t we argue then that prisons as a whole are unethical? This experiment revealed inmate perspectives that we have all heard about at some point in the past; physical abuse, psychological problems, identity crisis, malnutrition, etc… Therefore, after reading more about this experiment, I really started to question the ethics of the prison system as a whole. Furthermore, this experiment further revealed why many ex convicts still struggle with mental health issues and can even end up back in prison; this idea in tandem with structural discrimination can be really revealing for why prison is a cyclical process for many.

Another point that I found very interesting was their emphasis on emasculating the prisoners. Yet to me it seems as though they also made the guards seem more masculine with their dark sunglasses covering their face and equipped with whistles and clubs. This hierarchical structure must definitely lead to identity crisises.  In my Justice class first semester, we read a book on toxic masculinity and I could see some of these themes present during this experiment. I wonder how the prisoners would respond to a question about this; did you feel like less of a ‘man’ when you were in prison? How so? Why do you think this is the case? This toxic masculinity also makes me wonder how women and LGBTQ prisoners would handle this experiment. Would there be more instances of sexual, mental, physical abuse (although there were examples with the Stanford experiment, I am wondering if there would be more in this example)? How would their mental health differ as a result?