The Stamford prison experiment had to be one of the most preventable violations of ethics that I have seen throughout this entire class. When I first started watching the video about this experiment, I thought that the directors of the experiment had done a good job in installing camera that would supervise the experiment and allow them to interfere and stop things that were not right. However, this proved to be no help. The directors of the experiment ended up losing control of their own experiment. They allowed patient autonomy, and nonmaleficence to be violated. I know that even in a prison experiment, the patients must have known that they were going to lose some control, however the amount on control lost and the realism of the experiment fell way beyond the realm of an experiment.
The director of the experiment, by his own account, got “caught up” in the experiment. He probably thought that as long as no one is physically hurt then there is no harm done. As seen in the video however, he failed to take into account the psychological effects that the realism of the prison experiment would present to the guards and the prisoners. The guards, I believe, literally believed they were in a real prison and dealing with real criminals. They not only treated all of the prisoners harshly, but some inhumanly. They locked the prisoners in a dark closet that was supposed to be solitary confinement on more than one occasion. They kept food from them, and when some chose not to eat they just let them go hungry. This is clearly breaking nonmaleficence because these people could have starved to death. This is something that should not have been done and where the experiment should have stopped.
I feel that autonomy as informed consent of the prisoners in this experiment was also violated. This is for the pure and simple fact that I am sure they did not consent to be put into a dark closet, having basic amenities taken away and to be kept hungry at times. I would hope that no one would be that desperate for money and I would also like to think that this was not part of the legal document and consent form. This of course is assuming that there was even a consent form handed out originally. I also feel that it was extremely unethical when they were told that they could not leave even if they wanted to. This is clearly going against their wishes and not allowing the people involved in the experiment to have informed consent. I hope that in the future things like this experiment can be avoided. I hope that we have learned from this and will never allow it to be repeated again.
