the stanford prison experiment 8612

Over 14748+ facilities

• Prison Lookup
• Inmate Search
• Visitation Guide

Prisoner #8612 Unveiled: Who He Was And What Happened?

Use this website for informational purposes only.

The story of Prisoner #8612 and the events that led to the popularity of the prisoner forms the basis of modern psychology, and lecturers teach the phenomenon in psychology schools. Prisoner #8612 was not a real prisoner- a convict who the jury has sentenced to prison – but instead was among the volunteers of the Stanford Prison Experiment .

The experiment aimed at analyzing how individuals form behaviors depending on their environment. The experiment led to the production of related movies, documentaries, books, and other researches.

Though the experiment was conducted in 1971 for only six days rather than the planned two weeks, it has received numerous ethical criticisms. However, before the experimentation, American Psychological Association (APA) had approved that the experiment met all the ethical requirements. Due to the objections, Professor Zimbardo, in his book The Lucifer Effect , apologized for carrying out the investigation at the expense of human suffering and contributing to inhumanity to the volunteers.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The Stanford Prison Experiment was a simulated psychology experiment conducted at Stanford University in the summer of 1971. Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo led Stanford’s research team. The U.S Office of Naval Research funded the experiment via a government grant to study antisocial behavior. Philip Zimbardo, through this experiment, aimed to understand how people develop behaviors and the effects of roles and social expectations in a prison environment.

The experiment recruited its participants from an advert placed in the Palo Alto Times and The Stanford Daily. The advertisement offered a paid volunteer opportunity ($15 per day) to male college students to participate in a prison study. The advert attracted over 75 people, but the research team only recruited 24 students with no prior medical conditions, psychological disorders, or criminal arrests. Twelve were to play the role of prisoners, and the rest played the role of correctional officers.

The Palo Alto, California police picked up the college students from their homes, arrested and drove them away amidst their neighbors. The authority charged a part of them with armed robbery and the rest with burglary. The police booked, warned them of their rights, took their fingerprints and identifiers, blindfolded them, and put them in a holding cell. The police later took the blindfolded prisoners to the simulated Stanford County Jail. They searched, stripped the prisoners naked, and gave them uniforms with their prison numbers in the front and back. The prisoners had to wear rubber sandals and a heavy chain on their right ankles to remind them of their oppressiveness and make the prison scenery seem real.

The untrained guards made their own rules and were free to do whatever they deemed suitable to maintain the order of the prison. Warden Dafe Jaffe, a Stanford University undergraduate, supervised the prisoners and the guards. The guards violated some civil rights of the prisoners, harassed them, and also curtailed their privacy. The cells were small, with only three prisoners’ beds, and the guards could wake them up at 2.30 am and count them. The research team aimed to analyze the guards’ behavioral change, given their leadership roles, and the oppressed prisoners.

The prisoners became rebellious on the second day of the study, but the guards decided to calm the rebellion forcefully. The guards opened the cells, stripped the prisoners naked, and threw the ringleaders into confinement while harassing the other prisoners.

Prisoner #8612 Release

Prisoner #8612, less than 36 hours into the prison experiment, started acting uncontrollably and showing signs of acute emotional disturbance, rage, and disorganized thinking. Zimbardo’s team thought that the prisoner was using this as trickery to quit the program. The primary prison consultant talked with prisoner #8612 and made fun of him for being weak. Nevertheless, the consultant gave prisoner #8612 a chance to become an informant in exchange for no brutality from the guards. He left the prisoner to think about the offer.

During the next count, prisoner #8612 behavior deteriorated, he screamed, cursed the guards, and his rage was out of control. The researchers were convinced that the prisoner was really suffering and therefore released him from the experiment.

Shortly after his release, the guards heard a rumor that prisoners were planning an escape, and prisoner #8612 would aid the escape by breaking in with his friends and freeing the prisoners. However, prisoners never actualized the escape plan, but the guards escalated their harassment levels. They forced the inmates to do repetitive menial work like cleaning toils bowls with bare hands.

End of Stanford Prison Experiment

On the 6th day of the experiment, 20th August 1971, professor Zimbardo decided to end the investigation prematurely due to two significant reasons. First, he realized that the prison guards were escalating the abuse towards the prisoners at night when no one was watching them. The guards-out of their boredom- subjected inmates to pornographic and degrading abuse.

Secondly, Christina Maslach-who had visited to conduct interviews with the experiment participants-objected the experiment. She objected after seeing the state of the prison. During the sixth day of the prison simulation, Zimbardo met with the guards, the prisoners, and participants, including the staff. They altogether shared their experiences, and they discussed the conflicts that the simulation posed.

After the experiment, the experimenters continued with their careers and have made remarkable achievements in their lives:

• Philip Zimbardo: He was the mastermind behind the experiment and played the role of prison superintendent. He became APA president in 2001 alongside his career as a professor at Stanford University.
• David Jaffe: He acted as the prison warden and now works as a pediatric professor at Washington University.
• Christina Maslach: She aided in ending the study earlier than planned. She later became a vice provost and psychology professor at UC- Berkley.
• Craig Haney: He was a graduate student researcher. He became a psychology professor at UC- Santa Cruz and is also an expert in prison conditions.
• Curtis Banks: A graduate student researcher. He became the first African-American psychology professor at Princeton University to receive tenure.

Stanford Prison Experiment Criticism and Responses

The SPE is among the studies that have received numerous criticisms. This is due to the methodology used and the criteria for the experiment. The six most significant critiques of the investigation are:

Carlo Prescott article on Stanford Daily

Carlo Prescott, a prison consultant for the SPE, explained in the Stanford Daily how the methods Zimbardo applied were similar to what he experienced in San Quentin Prison. In his opinion, the untrained guards could not have acted the way they did unless the researchers had instructed them to work that way. Zimbardo responded by arguing that Prescott could not have written such a legal article, but rather, Hollywood producer and writer Michael Lazarou had written the opinion article.

The producer had tried to get the rights to the SPE’s story but was unsuccessful. SPE movie producer, Bretty Emory, supported via email and phone recordings that Prescott was not the author.

The guard’s instructions affected the outcome

Zimbardo and his team instructed guards to ensure that prisoners felt submissive and helpless but not cause physical harm from the experiment’s recordings. These instructions affected the study’s outcome. Zimbardo, however, responded that even in real prisons, guards have the authority to use power in maintaining order. He argued that you could not compare people role-playing as guards to the actual wardens and officers who exert pressure in prisons and military camps.

One guard was acting his role

David Eshelman, nicknamed John Wayne in the SPE, may have drawn his actions from the warden character in the Cool Hand Luke movie. David overacted his role and used several tactics to demean the inmates. At one time, Eshelman instructed some of the prisoners to simulate a sodomy act. To respond to this criticism, Zimbardo explains that other guards also acted in similar behavior. Still, the guards’ actions were not identical to real-world prison harassment or actions the American soldiers took in the Abu Ghraib prison.

Prisoner #8612 faked a mental breakdown

The story of Douglas Korpi also raised a lot of criticism, but Zimbardo has frequently managed to respond to the complaint. In a 2017 interview, Korpi declared that he faked the breakdown so that Zimbardo could release him. Zimbardo, in 2018, responded that he needed to treat Doug’s breakdown as a real breakdown and release him. Additionally, he termed Korpi’s statement as a lie.

The BBC prison experiment replicated SPE.

In 2002, BBC, in collaboration with researchers Alex Haslam and Steve Reicher, carried out research based on the Stanford Prison Study. Just like SPE, all prisoners were male, and BBC simulated the prison scenery. However, the prisoners filled a daily questionnaire, wore microphones, and cameras followed them throughout their actions.

Zimbardo at first termed the study to be like a reality show where participants are aware of the filming. This awareness can cause participants to overact to entertain the documentary watchers. Nevertheless, Zimbardo believed that the BBC experiment and SPE had similar results. In 2018, Haslam, Reicher, and Zimbardo jointly released a statement pointing out that both studies were valid.

Early publications were not peer-reviewed

After the experiment, instead of publishing in APA, Zimbardo shared his findings in New York Times magazine. Additionally, he published in Naval Research Reviews and International Journal of Criminology and Penology. However, Zimbardo shared his results in APA, other peer-reviewed journals, and his book. In his justification, Zimbardo explained that he wrote in the NYT magazine to share the findings with a broader audience. Additionally, the grant agreement with the Office of Naval Research expected him to publish the results in his journal. Concerning the IJCP publication, Zimbardo said that IJCP invited him to publish in their journal.

Unveiling Prisoner #8612

Douglas Korpi, also known as Prisoner #8612, participated in the Stanford Prison experiment in 1971. The 22-year-old graduate from Berkeley had replied to the advertisement Zimbardo’s team had placed. The research team recruited him from over 75 applicants who had responded to the ad placed in two newspapers. Korpi, during the experiment, instigated a prisoner rebellion in cell one over poor prison conditions. The guards had sent him to solitary confinement due to his behaviors.

Korpi thought he would find an uninterrupted environment and time to sit around the prison cell and revise for his upcoming Graduate Record Examinations. He started screaming due to his worry of not gaining access to his books to study for the GREs and not due to torture by the guards, as Zimbardo thought. He, however, became shocked after realizing that he couldn’t leave voluntarily and the guards were escalating the prison rules.

Korpi started shouting and telling other inmates that they could not leave or quit the experiment after the research team denied his request to leave. He screamed and requested for a doctor arguing that he was “burning up inside.” Zimbardo decided to release him from the simulated prison experiment. After his release, Zimbardo lied to the other inmates that he had transferred prisoner #8612 to a maximum-security prison.

Prisoner #8612, years later, claimed that he was only acting to make his suffering compel Zimbardo to release him. He said,” The breakdown I had was a manipulation to get out of the experiment. I put myself in a state of mental anguish, and it was traumatizing for me to scream, to do these things. Whether you will find it manipulative or were forced into it by some psychotic break, it’s still upsetting to have to yell and scream.” (Grunge, 2017)

Dr. Zimbardo disagreed with Doug’s statement, saying that time changes everything. He stated that Korpi’s feelings may have changed over time, and he was different from during the experiment. Dr. Zimbardo argued that time altered Korpi’s memory of the prison experience, and his memory was false.

However, regardless of the negative experiences, Doug Korpi changed his life and has had a successful career. He graduated with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and served as the chief psychologist in San Franciso County Jail. Doug practices forensic psychology and aims at improving prison conditions and creating an environment where the guards respect the dignity of the inmates. He has worked on projects that aim at making changes in the prison system.

This site is not owned or operated by any state government agency, read more .