Abu+Ghraib+&+The+lucifer+effect


 * __ Abu Ghraib & The Lucifer Effect __**

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= Abu Ghraib = Abu Ghraib is a prison based in Baghdad used by military personnel from the United States Army to house prisoners from the war in Iraq. In 2004, the prison was thrown into the public arena amid claims of physical, psychological and sexual abuse committed by US military police along with other governmental agencies also from the US. Articles, including some graphic photographs, depicting what was going on at Abu Ghraib came to media attention when a news report on //60 Minutes II// and also an article by Seymour M. Hersh in //The New Yorker// magazine came to light. 17 soldiers were removed from the prison, 11 were charged with various offences (sentenced to military prison and dishonourably discharged) and two soldiers were handed prison sentences for crimes committed (10 years for Specialist Charles Graner and 3 years for Specialist Lynndie England). The commanding officer of the prison (and all Iraqi detention facilities) Brigadier General Janis Karpinski denied all knowledge of the abuse that went on but was detained on dereliction of duty and demoted to colonel. Philip Zimbardo was an expert witness at the court martial of Sgt. Ivan “Chip” Frederick who was one of the guards at Abu Ghraib. During his testimony, he argued that Sgt. Frederick’s sentence should be less harsh due to mitigating circumstances – he argued that very few people would be able to resist the situational pressures of such a prison especially if the correct training is not given. The soldiers were not supervised properly either which Zimbardo also mentioned as a possible factor to which few can resist. Despite Zimbardo’s testimony, the judge rejected Frederick’s plea and disregarded Zimbardo’s testimony and sentenced Sgt. Frederick to the maximum sentence of 8 years. It was from his involvement and experience in this particular case that Philip Zimbardo wrote his book “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil”.

The Lucifer Effect
The idea behind the Lucifer Effect is that people act differently to how they normally would in adverse situations. A person who would consider themselves passive, non violent and compassionate of other human beings might act in the opposite way when put into a pressurised, unfamiliar situation where peer pressure and the need to fit in can also influence one’s actions. The question of “do we really know ourselves?” comes into play – do people who commit heinous crimes have defective characters or psychopathologies or are they normal, everyday people who are responding to an unusual situation. The Lucifer Effect looks at possible explanations for people’s reactions to these supposed adverse or unusual situations instead of automatically assuming the person is evil or that their actions were pre-meditated. Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment reflects much of the Lucifer effect theory. 24 seemingly normal college students were selected at random (having previously completed interview and psychological testing) and put into a situation that was not normal for them – a make shift prison. The prison “guards” acted in an abusive (physically, psychologically and mentally) manner towards the “prisoners” – in ways that their personality traits had not predicted. The experiment was cut short (from 2 weeks to just 6 days long) because of this abuse which Zimbardo himself also admitted to getting caught up in his role as “superintendent”. An interesting experiment that is often linked to this theory is the Milgram experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist. Participants were led to believe they were partaking in a test of learning and memory when it was actually about obedience and authority. The participants were required to give a series of progressively severe electric shocks to people – what was being looked at was the level to which participants would go to on the shock scale. Participants were normal everyday people who were led to believe they were shocking another person; most participants continued right up to the highest level of shock thereby obeying the researchers orders however unsure they felt. This particular point was picked up and questioned by Zimbardo – the participants who refused to administer the final and most severe shock did not leave the room, request that the experiment be terminated nor left to check on the person they were shocking without asking for permission first. With regards to the Abu Ghraib human rights abuses, Zimbardo argues that while those involved in the scandal were not initially bad people, the situation’s surroundings should be more closely looked at – those involved should not be completely absolved of their crimes but the entire chain of command should be held responsible. In depth psychological testing should have been instigated to begin with even though this will not always predict how a person will react to an abnormal situation – an opinion that received a huge amount of criticism and controversy.