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Can We Reverse The Stanford Prison Experiment?
- Ralith 14y agoWhat would it take to see this class of approach applied to policing elsewhere?
- ktizo 14y agoA complete re-evaluation of police hiring practices would be a good start.
- planetguy 14y agoTheir approach was to try to catch youth doing the right things and give them a Positive Ticket. The ticket granted the recipient free entry to the movies or to a local youth center. ... According to Clapham, youth recidivism was reduced from 60% to 8%. Overall crime was reduced by 40%. Youth crime was cut in half. Really? I mean, really? I'm gonna have to see some extraordinary evidence for this extraordinary claim before I believe that having police go round giving out free movie tickets for not-littering is sufficient to reduce recidivism by an astonishing factor of seven. And I've never heard of it before.
- ktizo 14y agoWell, they might be making it up, but presumably it would be really easy to check as it would be a matter of public record. They've fired him anyways, apparently for suggesting that transit cops should ride in buses occasionally. http://taxpayer.com/blog/29-11-2011/bc-translink-lost-11-million-bus-fare-evaders http://taxpayer.com/blog/29-11-2011/bc-translink-lost-11-mil...
- bilbo0s 14y agoWow. So the Police Chief DARES to intimate that the Police should get on the transit buses to bust these thieves... And they fire him!?!?!? Just... Wow... I can see why most police would just 'go with the flow'. They are not given the requisite latitude to implement innovative ideas with respect to their jobs. And frankly, boarding buses to bust freeloaders is not particularly innovative. It's just something that is usually not done.
- planetguy 14y agoExcept that the article doesn't even imply that was why he was fired -- it merely says that his plans to put more police on buses have been squished since he was fired. All I can find on the actual reasons he was fired is a nebulous "management style" bit http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=93d27fc9-b760-4cae-87ac-de8fc873ec1a&sponsor= http://www.canada.com/story_print.html?id=93d27fc9-b760-4cae... I'm still trying to figure out the details of this guy's life and how the above story can possibly be correct. It seems like he was the chief only of the Vancouver transit police, right? So precisely which crime stats are we looking at, when we look at the recidivism rates?
- sgfc 14y agoApparently he was the Superintendent for the Richmond RCMP who was appointed to the transit police in 2008-10: http://www.policeofficerleadership.com/rcmpdreamweaver.html http://www.policeofficerleadership.com/rcmpdreamweaver.html And I agree that the evidence certainly is not widely available. edit: And oddly enough when I googled "ward clapham recidivism" your comment was the first result.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- chc 14y agoActually, it just says the plan was scrapped because he was fired. All that means is he was the one in charge of the plan and nobody took it over after he left. That could have been the intent behind his firing, but it seems about as likely to be collateral damage.
- ktizo 14y agoYou could be right.. all other sources were extremely tight lipped and would only state that it was down to a difference in philosophy. That was the only article I could find that actually had any indication of what sort of policies he was implementing there in the time leading up to him getting fired and so I am probably pretty guilty of making an inference based on far too little information.
- guelo 14y agoYea, and http://www.positivetickets.com/ http://www.positivetickets.com/ looks more like a promotional page for the book with no data.
- anigbrowl 14y agoGuy wrote a book about it and seems to have a good rep: http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-With-Law-Positive-ebook/dp/B007BKAKLG http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-With-Law-Positive-ebook/dp/B0... New to me too, but entirely consistent with other research I've read on crime prevention.
- planetguy 14y agoI believe the general principle, just not the actual numbers. Another reason for skepticism: googling "ward clapham recidivism" I found a bunch of pages suggesting the recidivism rate dropped not to 8% but to 5%, an equally unsourced and implausible-sounding number. Of course recidivism rates depend on what you're measuring, anyway. 70% of burglars are re-arrested for burglary within three years of release, while only 3% of rapists and 1% of murderers get re-arrested for the same crimes.
- anamax 14y ago> 1% of murderers get re-arrested for the same crimes. The latter may well be due to the combination of (1) murder is (mostly) a young man's crime and (2) murder sentences are typically long enough that folks aren't young when they're paroled/released.
- Estragon 14y agoSome people have made careers out of setting up incentive structures like this. Check out Aubrey Daniels.[1] He has a consulting company based around it.[2] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Daniels#Discussion_of_Performance_Management http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Daniels#Discussion_of_Pe... [2] http://aubreydaniels.com/services-overview http://aubreydaniels.com/services-overview
- sliverstorm 14y agoI was quite skeptical, but I just realized- you know what they are not doing when they are at the movies with friends? Committing crimes.
- planetguy 14y agoThey're probably talking during the movie though. Frankly I think I'd rather have 'em out stealing cars.
- smallblacksun 14y agoThey're going to burn in a very special level of hell. http://youtu.be/wNs21BiFA4Y?t=34s http://youtu.be/wNs21BiFA4Y?t=34s
- ajuc 14y agoMy theory: If they get very small prize for socially accepted behaviour, they cannot think they did sth socially accepted for that prize - that would mean they are cheap to buy. So they think they did it because they are the kind of guys, that do such things sometimes. If I'm doing small acts of kindnes just because, it's hard to make this consistent with "fuck the others" attitude, stealing, etc. Easier to think I'm good guy overall, just made some mistakes before. Cognitive dissonance is a powerfull force. But IANAP.
- jvdh 14y agoSo what would happen when you stop giving out these Positive Tickets?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- stretchwithme 14y agoI tried to get one company I worked with to give people a small token of appreciation when they did something of significant value to the company. I recall more valuable time spent on the process of deciding who got them than the tokens were worth. People can forget that people who care about what they are doing innovate a lot more than people who just follow processes. If management cares most about following processes, so will everybody else.
- gruseom 14y agoZimbardo, who by an almost unimaginable coincidence went to high school with Stanley Milgram Wow. Like Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand.
- Cushman 14y agoNot totally on topic, but how is that an "almost unimaginable coincidence"? Given the number of people who are involved in similar things, and the number of people at your average high school, it pretty much goes without saying that some people who go to high school together will later do similar things. Journalists have weird ideas about probability.
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoAlso clustering around time, opportunity are common. "Outliers" talks about this.
- jgfoot 14y agoThe Stanford Prison Experiment still gets a lot of ink, but unfortunately the criticisms of it do not. I recommend this article: http://www.swans.com/library/art17/barker82.html http://www.swans.com/library/art17/barker82.html """over the past forty-plus years, the Stanford Prison Experiment has had a strong, and arguably detrimental impact upon both scholarly and popular conceptions of social psychology. Contrary to Zimbardo's misleading conclusions, ordinary people do not mindlessly and helplessly succumb to brutality; instead the evidence (even from his own experiment) seems to suggest that individuals tend to engage in brutality only when they truly believe that such actions are warranted -- acting upon ideas that are condoned by equally brutal group ideologies. The guards in Zimbardo's experiment were thus coerced by Zimbardo and his researchers to brutalize the prisoners; while the prisoners did not simply submit to the guards' brutality, but instead, actively resisted their oppression, both collectively and individually. This resistance was considered intolerable to Zimbardo, and as this article has shown, he utilized his system power to intervene to increase guard brutality and undermine the prisoners' collective will to resist their abusers."""
- kenjackson 14y agoThat paper seems to say that the only reason the guards were abusive is because they were told to be so. But wasn't that the point?
- kitsune_ 14y agoI've spent over 400 days in a closed environment with "special" group dynamics - the armed forces of Switzerland. Service is mandatory. I was made a NCO against my will. I've made some valuable unscientific, personal observations during this time. One is, that most people (I'd say 80%) do not speak up for themselves or others when it matters in groups with strict hierarchies. Not only that, I think that most people don't have any basic moral convictions. Group punishment is highly effective. I've learnt that sadistic, manipulative and narcissistic people thrive in such environments and if left uncontrolled, alike to a malign tumor that spreads rapidly to other parts of the body, they can impact the entire organization quickly.
- masklinn 14y ago
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- saraid216 14y agoIt's hard to encapsulate the entirety of a TV show season in a comment, so I'm going to use a quotation instead. This is from The Wire, Season 4, Major Bunny Colvin: "This drug thing, this ain't police work. No, it ain't. I mean, I can send any fool with a badge and a gun up on them corners and jack a crew and grab vials. But policing? I mean, you call something a war and pretty soon everybody gonna be running around acting like warriors. They gonna be running around on a damn crusade, storming corners, slapping on cuffs, racking up body counts. And when you at war, you need a fucking enemy. And pretty soon, damn near everybody on every corner is your fucking enemy. And soon the neighborhood that you're supposed to be policing, that's just occupied territory." The Wire has been acclaimed specifically for its close representation (still obviously dramatized) with the reality of Baltimore. If you haven't watched all five seasons, you should do so.
- sharkweek 14y agoI was always fascinated with the idea that "the game" has a certain way of being played -- I think Bodie says something of the sort when they're trying to set up Hamsterdam -- I walk by a pretty busy drug corner on my way to work and it always fascinates me how organized it all is. One of the most interesting things I ever saw was two homeless guys fighting over some money when several of the drug dealers came over and broke it up. Self-policing to keep the police away.
- johnchristopher 14y agoIt contradicts the story of that old and wise guy who decided to give money to the children who were harassing him. Each time they spotted him and cursed him they would earn one dollar. In the end they stopped because it became "work". My experience in the education system is that bad behaviour is punished in very public way and good behaviour is never publicised and rarely get any recognition except when to cast a light on bad behaviour. Edit: the article makes a poor job of explaining that losada line and so does wikipedia.
- wazoox 14y ago* > It contradicts the story of that old and wise guy who decided to give money to the children who were harassing him.* Source? I never heard of that.
- johnchristopher 14y agoI am not sure there are any sources to this story, it's most likely made up to prove a point ("once it's work, it's no fun" and "old people are cunning") and there are variants but it's a rather commmon story told in classroom where I grew up (Belgium). It's like the story of the boy who cried wolf, its origins are lost in time and not very precise.
- Avenger42 14y agoThe version I heard went something like this: A man was tired of the local youths <doing negative behavior>, so he offered them a small amount of money ($2-3) when they'd <do negative behavior>. The next week he came to them and told them "sorry, business was slow, all I can give you this week is $1/time." They weren't happy, but agreed. The next week he went back and said "sorry, even slower, I can only afford $0.25/time now." The youths said "we're not doing this for $0.25!" and stopped <negative behavior> altogether.
- wccrawford 14y agoSeems to me it was more likely they stopped because it wasn't giving them their jollies like they wanted. They wanted him to be angry angry. Instead, he calmly gives them money. Not fun.