The Role of Self, Attitudes and Behavior in a Human Rights Approach to Prison Management - Essay Example

353125 – Critically evaluate the role of self, attitudes and behavior in a human rights approach to prison management Introduction: Human rights guidelines for prison management According to human rights approach the prisons are to be managed in ethical context. It is most effective and safe. The international human rights have provided some guidelines for treatment of persons deprived of liberty (Murdoch, 2006) .The important points of these are presented below: All persons deprived of liberty shall be treated with respect for their human rights. Persons deprived of their liberty retain all rights that are not lawfully taken away. Restrictions on persons shall be minimum necessary and in proportion to seriousness of their crimes. Prison conditions that infringe prisoners are not justified by lack of resources. Life conditions in a prison shall be as in a community All detention shall be managed to facilitate reintegration into free society. Co-operation of outside social services to prison shall be encouraged. Prison staff shall be trained in its duty All prisons shall be inspected by government and be monitored independently. The present article assesses the environment prevailing in the prisons. The basis of study is taken a prison simulation study by Zimbardo (1972) which is close to reality as similar physical and mental torture of prisoners has been widely reported from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. A ‘functional Simulation’ of prison A comparison of human rights provisions is made in the article with the prison simulated experiment, the Stanford prison experiment (Zimbardo, 1972). It was called a functional simulation of prison in United States. We find that it has raised many ethical questions, though Zimbardo stated that the exercise has prompted national penal system to review its process and bring about changes to make its prisons more humanitarian. The experimental prisoners or volunteers of the experiment were all young male students. They were given a loose tunic without any underclothes to wear as the prison uniform. Their heads were covered with women’s nylon stockings. Soon they began to walk and sit like women or there was emasculation of the prisoners. Their feet were put into chains to remind them of the oppressiveness of their condition. Their uniforms had numbers, their identification numbers, which were to become their identity for the duration of the experiment instead of their names. They were addressed by this number only. The prisoners were no longer individuals with names thus an anonymous or de-individualization state was imposed upon them. The prisoners were given minimally adequate diet and three prisoners occupied a 6ftx9ft room (Eiser, 1986). The guards were also volunteers without any history of prison life or crime. All the guards wore khaki uniforms, had police batons in their hands and sported mirror sunglasses which gave them a stereotype prison guard look. They took their role to rather extreme and harassed, stripped the prisoners naked in the name of searching and deloused them at the admission stage. The simulated prison showed de-individualization of both guards and prisoners. The guard took himself as guard and the prisoner as real prisoner. The guards asked the prisoners to do push ups and during these they stepped on their backs. The prisoners were told to clean toilet bowls with bare hands and prevented from going to toilet. The very second day of the experiment a rebellion broke out. At this, the guards thought of using psychological tactics. They kept the leader of rebellion in the solitary confinement in a hole of 2ftx2ftx7ft. They rewarded the least rebellious prisoners with a stay in the privilege cell where they were given clean beds, better food and toilet facilities. As a result the prisoners were in confusion and became distrustful of each other taking the fellow prisoners as informers. But the move enhanced solidarity among guards. In less than two days the prisoners lost their emotional balance as they started breaking down , became nervous and frightened (Zimbardo, 1972). The prison authorities (experimenters) thought they are trying to bluff them. The prison authorities in the experiment too behaved as stereotype jail authority. Thus the role playing had changed the behavior and attitude of authorities also who forgot that it was only an experiment. The experimental prisoners were so broken that they began to meekly follow whatever they were told to do. So much so that the sufferings of a fellow prisoner became nuisance to them and they did not show any compassion. The experiment was required to be terminated much earlier than planned. Assessing prison staff’s behavior and attitude in the framework of human rights Let us Zimbardo’s experiment as reality in the prisons across the world evaluate the condition in the context of human rights provisions. Defending the design of experiment, Zimbardo argued that a role playing can totally de-individualize a person . The experimental outcomes could help prison authorities to know the exact cause of evils prevailing in the system and eradicate these? Probably that was the reason that experiment was conducted by creating situations in violation of the human rights law as prevalent in the prisons evident from the Abu Ghraib prison. How the human rights listed above were violated in this experiment? It would be appropriate here to discuss human rights provisions as presented by Coyle (2002). The staff needs to be lawful and sensitive to the dignity of detained person at the time of admission. Instead the initial treatment in the experiment was contrary to the provisions. Coyle has emphasized that torture and ill- treatment are absolutely prohibited in the international human rights. The torture whether mental or physical is against the law. The isolated atmosphere in the prisons tempts staff for abusive action either alone or in an organized manner which is taken as normal behavior. A newly admitted prisoner is particularly vulnerable to such behavior. The prison experiment exposed this attitude fully. Prisoners are vulnerable to sexual abuse whether as a coercion or exchange of favors. Human rights laws bar guards from carrying batons during routine rounds but contrary to that, in the Zimbardo’s experiment they carried their batons always and also used these too frequently. The human rights particularly advocate for avoiding solitary confinement except under extreme conditions while the experiment saw staff using solitary confinement for a prisoner on such a small ‘offence’ as refusing to eat! Excessive force and coercion is routinely used by prison staff and that point, as it happens is presented well in the experiment. The results of the experiment have shown that in the end the prisoners became meek, oppressed and de-individualized as they called themselves by their number rather than their names! While those playing role of guards became more torturous than expected from a normal citizen, a student. The situation thus certainly induces a behavior previously unknown in these young students. Here, the bored guards entertained themselves by being brutal to prisoners while the tortured prisoners left themselves to the mercy of their tormentors. The experimental prisoners lost all human emotions and sufferings of fellow prisoner too seemed an annoyance to them. Can such individuals who have passed through so much in life be integrated as useful citizen of free society? Eiser (1986) commented that Stanford prison simulation experiment presented an interpersonal dynamics in a prison environment. In this functional simulation of a prison the male students lost their identity and played the stereotype role of prisoners and guards. Activities and experiences were created to produce effects similar to qualitative psychological reactions in a real prison. Such as feelings of subjugation and power, control and oppression, frustration and satisfaction, of arbitrary rules and resistance of authorities, status and anonymity, emasculation etc. Zimbardo’s experiment was based on role play theory. The experiment was terminated prematurely as the emotional turmoil of the participants had begun to take a serious turn with ethical questions. The anonymity or loss of identity in prisoners resulted in morbidity, depression, psychosomatic and psycho pathological disturbances. The guards became aggressive, brutal, arbitrary authoritarian with strong solidarity (Yardley-Matwiejczuk, 1997). The study had drawn quite a few controversies as well, Zimbardo (1972) emphasized that experiment has given useful outcomes as prison violence was due to situational rather than dispositional factors.. But then the study should have observed for dispositional characters already present in the participants (Yardley-Matwiejczuk, 1997). He argued that can a normal, lay individual take his duties as guards to extremes right from the beginning merely due to changed identity? It is flawed. It can not be just because he is wearing a particular uniform and carrying a baton in his hand. The experimenters argued that the behavior changes because of type of people in the prison. But when given no information about the role they have to play would not these just copy a stereotype prison guard. Otherwise also the experiment did not specify the role to inmates and assumed that prisoners enter into prison without any history or personal identity and immediately take up the identity given to them. How come the subculture is lacking and every guard and prisoner has same history which is in contrast with real prison environments?. It also seems unlikely that a normal prison day is filled with so much torture and emotional turmoil. As a conclusion, Zimbardo’s experiment does show the violation of the most fundamental human rights that prisoners are also human. It partly is due to lack of awareness among staff. Secondly, the guards with a stereotype image in mind take it as their duty to inflict physical and psychological torture on the prison inmates. The experiment though questionable on ethical grounds does provide a basis to understand behavior and attitude in the secluded prison environment and help authorities to review the penal system. The behavior and attitude change as a result of loss of own identity and acquiring the role’s identity may also happen and the finding applies to regular prison staff. The human rights clearly indicate that the Prison staff must be trained in human rights approach and strictly follow these. In fact these provisions should be made the part of their code of professional conduct. After all these prisoners would be inducted one day in the society as socially competent individuals and prison life should prepare them for that. References Coyle A 2002, Human Rights Approach to Prison Management: Handbook for prison staff, Available from: http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/pdf2/fco_pdf_prisonreformhandbook[9 Mar 2009] Eiser, JR 1986, Social psychology: attitude, cognition, and social behavior, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press. Murdoch, JL 2006, The Treatment of Prisoners: European Standard, Council of Europe Yardley-Matwiejczuk, KM 1997, Role Play: Theory and Practice, SAGE Zimbardo, PG 1972, Stanford Prison Experiment: A Simulation Study of the Psychology of Imprisonment, Philip G. Zimbardo, Inc. Slides available from: http://www.prisonexp.org/slide-38.htm [ 9 Mar 2009] Read More