One of the most important critiques leveled at the Stanford Jail Experiment is the length of time it took Zimbardo to call a halt to the experiment, despite strong evidence that circumstances inside the model prison had begun to deteriorate by the second day. On the third day, a riot erupted, and one of the prisoners began to exhibit symptoms of severe psychological stress. It wasn’t long before the situation deteriorated fast as the jail guards’ actions became increasingly nasty and more detainees succumbed to psychological stress.
There were ethical considerations at stake from the commencement of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Participants were not provided comprehensive information about what they were signing, and permission papers were not properly completed. Although the volunteers were notified that they would be taking part in a fake jail experiment, being arrested at home and strip-searched upon arrival at the prison would have come as a total surprise — and strip-searching without consent is a full breach of rights. The Stanford Prison Experiment would never have been permitted to take place if contemporary criteria had been followed since it would have been a significant breach of ethics following the American Psychological Association’s principles.
Multiple researchers have linked the Stanford Prison Experiment’s findings to the abuse in Abu Gharib. There have been several reports of rapes by US soldiers of prisoners, as well as accounts of other troop members taking photos of the rapes. There are other reports of sexual assault with different objects, as well as several reports of torture, including strappado hanging. Later on, Zimbardo testified as an expert witness in the Abu Ghraib proceedings, apparently because of his involvement in the Stanford Prison Experiment, which has some parallels to the abuse of power at Abu Ghraib Prison.