The Effect Of Prison Life On The Guards And The Prisoners Essay

1917 Words Oct 3rd, 2016 8 Pages
Prison Life
In 1971, a group of young men was psychologically tested in an experiment to see a human response to power and to captivity. Twenty-four participators with two backups and one that dropped out of the experiment were a part of The Stanford Prison Experiment, eleven participators were prison guards and ten were prisoners. This experiment was supposed to last a total of fourteen days but was discontinued after six days due to the mental health of the subjects. With this research being a success it is highly unethical and has proven that prison life does not treat inmates with the safety and concern for their mental health, which is proven at Stanford.

Starting the Experiment
This experiment needed to answer some difficult questions; one being what happens when you put a good man in a horrible, evil place such as a prison. The person leading the experiment was Psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo and his contemporaries needed to find people willing to participate in how the impact of prison life affects the guards and the prisoners. Using an ad in the paper offering fifteen dollars a day, seventy people filled out applications and were heavy screened for drug abuse, any involvements in crime, or any underlying mental illness that was not documented, only twenty-four students from various colleges in Canada and the Stanford area were given the paid opportunity to take part of Zimbardo’s experiment (Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, & Jaffe, 1971).
The volunteers were…
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