It goes on today, more or less:
The problem confronting the conscripts nonetheless extends far beyond commanders who are drunk with power. In perhaps the strangest twist in the story of the disko, [rights activist Tolga] Islam says prison guards themselves are chosen from the ranks of conscripts, often from the same group that they oversee — and sometimes torture. “These are people who have been taken from the same group of soldiers, some know each other. And what is most incredible is that, from what we understand, commanders don’t necessarily tell guards how to torture or how far to go. In the disko, they give them impunity to do what they wish.”
It is chillingly similar, Islam says, to a notorious 1971 experiment by Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo, where participants were randomly given roles as guards or prisoners in a mock prison. Within less than a week, the mock guards had quickly “become sadistic,” subjecting some prisoners to psychological torture. The experiment was shut down after only six days.
“The diskos are the perfect real life example of this experiment. Guards begin to think, ‘We have this person in our prison for 24 hours. Nobody will stop us if we torture him.’” That disturbing license for abuse leads prison guards develop their own practices of torture, from slapping inmates who make eye contact with guards to severe and prolonged beatings, deliberate malnourishment, confining recruits to cramped and filthy spaces, or leaving them shackled outside in the sun for prolonged periods of time.
While former military judge Kardaş says that such practices follow a “hard logic” of instilling fear and a sense of arbitrary control among recruits, at times even that vague reason for torture seems to be absent. In Uğur’s case, it is difficult to understand what the torture was meant to communicate, given that his unit had just days left before its term of service was over. “The only way to explain it is that there’s a culture of impunity here, one that gives people unimaginable power and allows abuse to go on for years,” Islam argues.
Here is much more, by Noah Blaser, sad story but compelling reading.
If people can abuse those under them with impunity… they will. Particularly if those people are thought to be “bad.”
I guess some people are like Dexter. They love abusing/hurting/killing people and just like following Harry’s code allows Dexter to do his stuff without attracting attention, a lot of these people are able to enjoy abusing people because society sanctions it under certain circumstances.
Doc, parents have the ability to be abusive with impunity, and many do not. I agree that when you brand someone under your control as “bad”, then it’s easier to rationalize abuse. Many, but not all bosses become abusive.
By explanation and not excuse, consider that people in prison (not jail) are almost all violent offenders, and all of them have a problem with rules and authority. Imposing rules and authority is part of their rehabilitation. If the prisoners spot a soft heart, they will exploit it. Prison guards have to be perceived as both tough and fair in order to survive. If they are not fair, then they must operate in teams or they will get killed. Many of those inmates have nothing to lose, already hate the guards and have a reputation of their own to uphold.
Being a prison guard is hard work and is dangerous. I spent 5 years putting people behind bars. All of them were soldiers with no prior criminal record. They were already trained to live in a regimented society. Maybe the discipline incited them to rebel, but I think their crimes were rooted in mindsets formed long before they enlisted. Those from the streets have little if any exposure to discipline.
“Doc, parents have the ability to be abusive with impunity, and many do not.”
Not really. Abusive behavior leads to your kids leaving you without love and also not taking care of you in your old age.
Not trying to undermine your point, but how many prison guards get killed on duty in American prisons every year? Is it a significant number. Google wasn’t very helpful with a statistic.
No, that’s a good job questioning my point. I don’t know the answer. There is no shortage of news stories, but I couldn’t find a site with statistics. One problem is that there are different levels of incarceration in America from federal supermax penitentiaries to city jails, each with varying levels of security.
But a low number of guards killed is not dispositive of the premise of it being a dangerous job. By taking precautions, guard deaths and injuries can be minimized. Danger is also relative – relatively few American soldiers or cops are killed each year, but the low rate is hundreds of times higher than that of, say, college professors.
You have caught me arguing from anecdote. I used to be a prosecutor a couple of decades ago, and I became acquainted with conditions in our federal penitentiaries and correctional facilities. I cannot claim to know what they are like today.
In the last post on solitary confinement, I had to restrain myself from answering because I was too emotional on the topic. On the one hand, all of the people I prosecuted for felonies deserved every day of punishment and more. On the other hand, I understand that these are human beings who deserve to be treated with some compassion. Their lives don’t have to be comfortable, but they shouldn’t be causing insanity – especially if there is any chance they can rejoin society.
I don’t claim to have any answers about America’s prison system. When that young boy was caned in Singapore for vandalism, I pondered whether severe corporal punishment might not only save us a lot of money putting people in cages, but also work as a better deterrent. The main obstacle to corporal punishment in America is that it raises the spectre of American slavery. I don’t think this country will tolerate watching black men being flogged, even when they deserve it.
You might find this 15 minute Podcast by Victor Tadros interesting:
http://bit.ly/Victor_Tadros_on_Punishment
By the time I saw the article, we already had >100 posts, so I demurred. But since it has come up again…
The same people who have argued for decades that capital punishment is inhuman, that we should go for life in prison are now whining that life in solitary is “worse than death”. In fact, these people are not accepting that these people must receive consequences for their behavior. How many of those in solitary today would have received death sentences 100 years ago?
Cry me a river.
Is it an inconsistent position to say both are inhuman?
How are things in Guantanamo?
Better than they used to be.
My favourite part of this is how no one is drawing the connection between this and the conversation about contracts, libertarianism and the limits of workplace power. Just keep it separate, guys. Don’t think about it too hard. Prisons are completely different places because… reasons! Yes!
No one? Are you sure about that?
“Many, but not all bosses become abusive.”
Is it still your favorite part?
You get to your “favorite part” of “no one” drawing a connection after only four comments?
Do you have any empirical evidence for your prejudices?
Yes, prisons are very much like public schools run by government.
Torture is only possible at publicly-run prisons, which, like publicly run firms, are inherently authoritarian and take away liberty.
Private prisons on the other hand, have economic liberty of contract. amagi, Statists! Who is John galt? etc.
How do these guys ever manage to get IRB approval?
Threat of torture?
There is a difference between this and the Stanford Experiment – the Stanford Experiment was for no purpose. They were sadistic because the circumstances let them.
The Turks want a decent Armed Forces in a country where a lot of conscripts have ideological problems with at least some aspect of the State. Probably a majority. In the past, the majority of soldiers were peasants and had little of the training middle class children take for granted due to all those years of schooling – how to sit down and shut up for instance. Going with the peasant thing, a lot of conscripts will not understand the purpose of what they are doing either. They will be quasi-illiterate.
Thus you need fierce discipline and sometimes it will go too far and people will be beaten to death. Which, yes, they ought to stop, but it is very hard to do so. They need the efficient army. That is the key priority. Until recently most countries accepted a certain number of deaths in training because training had to be tough and realistic if it was to be any use at all. Now we don’t. Luckily the West has massive artillery and aerial dominance and so we don’t need to slug it out like we used to. The Turks don’t. Except against their own civilians which is the main use of the military but then we are back with the ideological objections to the government.
So the conscripts who guard the prisoners know they are prisoners and know that slacking off will result in an even more Third World army. They have a purpose to their brutality. Although having said that, in my experience no police force is as routinely and habitually as nasty to its own people as the Turkish police. I would not want to be conscripted by the Turks. Nor would I want to be conscripted by the South Koreans who have also had some recent scandals. Nor by the Russians who have on going problems.
But for the Turks, what is the alternative?
The alternative is easy, getting there is hard.
On the contrary, getting there is all too easy. Just tell them to stop. Having an effective military and stopping is a very different matter. Anyone can insist that discipline is a problem and it is time to let off. However in Turkey that may result in even more abuse given the likelihood of conscripts being very nasty to each other.
Could it be that the conscript guards are brutal only to avoid rebuke from superiors? Are they brutal-by-choice or brutal-by-compulsion. Would any perceived shirking of sadistic duties lead to they themselves being at risk of being brutalized?
Obviously, if the conscripts who guard the prisoners know that their own actions have consequences and if they act in an inhumane manner they too will be punished. The story says they have a license for abuse. That license needs to be taken away.
When the guards in Abu Ghraib were told one goal was to ‘break’ prisoners and to ignore the Geneva conventions, the resulting torture was the natural result. When those directives were taken away, things changed. Rules and incentives matter.
We can easily replace the term, prison guards,with just about anyone who has political power and the conclusions are the same . The behavior becomes worse the more power they have and the less likely that bad behavior will have bad consequences for them
Oliver Stone had to apologize about “Midnight Express” because this stuff doesn’t happen in Turkish prisons:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/dec/16/turkey.film
Power corrupts? I’m shocked to find modern confirmation of ancient wisdom.
“Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” – George Orwell
Don’t you see the same thing in medical residency? It is strange.
You will certainly see it in any investment bank in the country. Walk into the office at 3am and you will see a bunch of 23 year olds wearing out the ALT, E, S, T keys on their computers.
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