Kingman and the Stanford Prison Experiment

Kingman and the Stanford Prison Experiment

 

From the first, the guards’ priorities were set by corporate greed and profit sharing stockholders. In a presentation to reveal the truth of the July riots, the ADOC will shortly offer a lengthy conclusion of the cause and effect of the riots in Golden Valley communities. At best, the conditions described are ripe to repeat and there should be no mystery as to why this occurred. On the other hand, the “conclusive” report will reveal many superficial causes but it will never hit the nerve of the problem at hand, shoddy recruitment methods by the prison contractor, Management Training Corporation (MTC).

 

MTC has been notorious in hiring ordinary people from the local communities and turning them into guards for their prison complex.  There is so much evidence for this to be a serious concern, but it continues to be neglected. This transition is best described as less than medial and fundamentally basic in nature as this corporate mindset dresses each man or woman hired to work their prison into a uniform and give them the authority to boss other people around. To make certain, this is not the fault or the blame of the person, but rather, it is an indictment of malpractices that puts these people in danger.

 

Not much else is done to complete the training process as they are so shorthanded, they are working with a 15 percent vacancy rate and another 30 percent new or inexperienced guards working the line. Translated into numbers. That gives MTC a 55 per cent efficiency rating that falls way below the national standard of 70 percent or above.

 

Lacking structure, training and confidence, these guards operated without explicit knowledge or skill, living moment to moment, and doing the best they can under extreme circumstances. Theoretically, they are not autonomous in nature, receiving lackluster leadership instructions from up above. Disputes between guards and prisoners were resolved without administrative oversight and that allowed the guards to handle disputes any way or manner they deem to be fit for the situation at hand. Like the Stanford prison experiment, a study that showed how ordinary people, given authority or power, can and will abuse such power if there are not control mechanism in place to refrain from abuse or abusive behaviors.

 

MTC has overlooked abuse and negative behaviors, empowering guards to do what they need to do to control the situations while being outnumbered two hundred to one at any time of their shift. Fear is logical and retaliation is explicitly promoted in silence and behind the scenes as prison officials look the other way. The message to the guards is clear and concise – all is well that ends well and keep doing what you are doing to make it work. Lack of administrative feedback was tacit approval their methods were met with satisfaction. Only drawback is that after time, usually a year or less, a rebellion sets fire and the force is imploded to the point of physical violence and retaliatory strikes at staff.

 

How does this syndrome develop so quickly and why does it happen? The syndrome is called the guard persona – it is a consciously created role to meet the needs of the prison setting. The more of a jungle it is, the more aggressive the persona – it is an adaptive and survival skill learned in the lessons of life and exponentially developed if the employee has prior military or security guard experience. In reality, it is completely separate of the correctional officer persona and should be kept apart.

 

Thus these guards deal with negative feedback 24/7 and supervisory mandates rather than inspiration to work long hours, deal with their stress and anxieties and at the same time impose discipline on a rebellious population who recognize the structural weakness and revolt as their anger reached a point of no return. How far can you push such a persona before it runs out of patience? How much abuse can a guard tolerate before he or she strikes back? Is this normal behavior and how to you stop it from escalating to a more dangerous form or antagonistic misconduct? The answers were all provided on July 2^nd when the second riot jumped off and the place turned into chaos and bedlam.

From the moment MTC puts out a guard positon in the newspaper, they place these guards at risk. Their abbreviated hiring practices due to deep vacancies creates skipped personality or other psychological profile tests and merely determines that if the person can add two plus two equals four, they are eligible for the prison guard position.

 

This is how they recruit and select their workforce. They don’t test for traits that reveal a tendency to be overly aggressive; behave with an authoritarian attitude or be possessed of narcissism or social dominance traits. Traditionally, recruitment efforts such as described here garner a result that finds most potential employees scoring lower than state employees competing for the same job and fail to meet measured standards on empathy, altruism, or other behavioral patterns that makes them better suitable for other jobs rather than being a prison guard.

 

Just like the flawed in many ways, the Stanford prison experiment revealed, these ordinary people turn into abusive individuals as they separate their personalities away from work and adapt to become another persona while working as a prison guard at the Kingman complex. Is there any wonder why people get hurt, and why there is so much violence at the Kingman prison?

 

Read the Stanford prison experiment and apply those conditions that exist and you will find the answer to the recent riots and determine that the next riot is only a few months away unless MTC begins to train and supervise their staff at a higher standard and control behaviors which in turn will provide a less volatile and unsettled environment on the prison yard.