Unhelpful

At first they insisted that reinforcements be called in. The three guards who were waiting on stand-by call at home came in and the night shift of guards voluntarily remained on duty to bolster the morning shift. The guards met and decided to treat force with force.

They got a fire extinguisher which shot a stream of skin-chilling carbon dioxide, and they forced the prisoners away from the doors.

The guards broke into each cell, stripped the prisoners naked, took the beds out, forced the ringleaders of the prisoner rebellion into solitary confinement, and generally began to harass and intimidate the prisoners.

This isn’t what most of you think it is.

If you think it’s the account of a US prison rebellion, you’re wrong.

If you think the prisoners are Jews, and that this took place in the Hitler’s Germany, you’re wrong.

If you think this is a tale about defiance in a despotic third-world regieme, you’re still wrong.

It’s August, 1971 in Palo Alto, California, and this is just part of the story of something that happened not in a “real” prison, but rather in a university. Welcome to the Stanford Prison Experiment. Read more »