One of the questions that has been the focus of public and academic attention was the question of what makes good, ordinary people commit particularly inhumane crimes, and how impenetrable is the boundary between good and evil. Zimbardo, based on the results of the experiment, came to the conclusion that this boundary is very permeable. The transformation of the character of an ordinary, normal person that occurs at the moment of committing evil, the researcher called the “Lucifer effect” (Zimbardo, 2007).
It was this effect that manifested itself when the students participating in the experiment behaved in strict accordance with the role imposed on them by the system, and subsequently none of them could understand how this could happen. A peculiar change could be observed when a new “prisoner” came to prison and behaved unusually: he went on a hunger strike. By this time, the rest of the “prisoners” were already emotionally broken, and their mission was to force him to eat together with the “guards”, and in this way avoid sanctions from the “guards”. That is, instead of becoming a hero for other “prisoners”, he became a source of problems for both. Now both “guards” and “prisoners” have joined forces to break the resistance of the so-called rebel.
As Zimbardo himself notes, during the experiment, the people managing it got used to the fact that consistent violence and insults create the breeding grounds for a proportionately violent response The situation was saved by the fact that one woman, namely, the wife of Zimbardo, assessing what was happening, called for its termination. As a result, the experiment, designed for two weeks, had to be stopped ahead of schedule, and claims related to compliance with ethical standards are still being made against him.
Based on the reasoning made above, the hideous instances of torture and abuse to which prisoners of Abu Ghraib were subjected cannot be blamed entirely on the specific people that perpetrated it. While those inflicting tortures on the prisoners are still responsible for their actions and must be punished accordingly, every single leader within the Abu Ghraib prison system must also be condemned for creating the environment in which such an outrageous instance of the violation of human rights has taken place. Therefore, the entire prison staff, as well as the jail administrator officials and the associated managers at Abu Ghraib, will have to serve their sentence. Their actions were indicative of the complete absence of moral fabric in any of the offenders. Zimbardo’s experiment indicates that those torturing the prisoners are fully aware of the inhumane nature of their actions. Therefore, appropriate measures must be introduced to address the observed atrocious violation of the human rights.
Indeed, as the provided evidence demonstrates, the orders that encouraged the prison guards to subject the prisoners to inhumane and torturous experiences were authorized by the prison officials. Specifically, sufficient evidence has been produced to demonstrate that the orders were received from the administrators of the prison and were not initiated by the defendants. However, even though Zimbardo’s experiment has demonstrated that people are conditioned to obey the orders of the authority, the results of the experiment do not absolve the prison guards from the crimes that they committed, either from the criminal justice perspective, or from the ethical standpoint. Therefore, all parties involved must be subjected to respective punishments and take responsibility for their actions.
Reference
Zimbardo, P. (2007). The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. New York, NY: Random House.