In 2006, it cost the people of Maldives a whopping Rf 288,000/- per inmate per year to house, feed, medicals etc until the Department of Penitentiary brought in major changes. This is roughly USD 62.26 per inmate per day, and current cost being about USD 46.70 per day. The cost to the US tax payer per inmate was USD 62.05 per day in 2001. Hence the amount we spend to imprison and rehabilitate prisoners is as good as developed nations.
The Stanford Prison Experiment led by Prof.Emeritus of Psychology (Stanford University) Philip Zimbardo is until today the most extensive research done by psychologists to study the effects of imprisonment and also the effects of working as prison guards.
Mistreatment of prisoners is common in every country of the world. There is no distinction from the most developed country to the least developed when it comes to mistreatment of prisoners. The prisoner abuse by US Troops in Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq was committed by personnel of the most disciplined force in the world.
Prof. Philip Zimbardo’s study used the basement of Stanford University converted as the Prison and the guards and well as the prisoners were chosen from volunteer. The researchers selected normal, healthy, good kids that they found through ads in the papers. They were not Stanford students, but kids from all over the United States who were in the Bay Area finishing summer school. A hundred kids applied, the researchers interviewed them, and gave them personality tests. They picked the two dozen who were the most normal, most healthy kids.
Within a few days, those that were assigned to the guard role, became abusive, red-necked prison guards. Every day the level of hostility, abuse, and degradation of the prisoners became worse and worse and worse. Within 36 hours the first prisoner had an emotional breakdown, crying, screaming, and thinking irrationally. The researchers had to release him, and each day after that they had to release another prisoner because of extreme stress reactions. The study was supposed to run for two weeks, but they ended it after six days because it was literally out of control. Kids chosen because they were normal and healthy were breaking down. Kids who were pacifists were acting sadistically, taking pleasure in inflicting cruel, evil punishment on prisoners. That study has legs even today, especially because of the recent exposure of abuses in the Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib and others around the world.
The study also showed that it was the “good guards” who maintained the prison. It was the guards on the shift where you had the worst abuses who never did anything bad to the prisoners, but not once, over the whole week, did they ever go to one of the bad guards and say, “What are you doing? We get paid the same money without knocking ourselves out.” Or, “Hey, remember those are college students, not prisoners.” No good guard ever intervened once to stop the activities of the bad guards. No good guard ever came a minute late, left a minute early, or publicly complained. In a sense, then, it’s the good guard who allows this to happen. It’s the good parent who allows a spouse to abuse their children without opposing it. That’s something that’s really important for us to consider.
Above are just a few lines from the study. For those of you who are really concerned in our prison system, and want to contribute to improve it would find the link in the first paragraph extremely useful. Though this study was done in 1971, every single fact is being repeated around the world, including this nation.
Crime is on the rise, and we cannot be blind to the fact that the prison population in Maldives will only grow. We as citizens forget about the people who commit crimes once they are off our turf. However, it is a fact that these people are being held off our faces by being locked up in a limited space, often for long periods with nothing much to do. At the same time, there are those from within us who work to run the prison system. They face each and every one of them who we do not want to see even once, every single day. The prison staff from guards to doctors faces daily verbal abuse and other harassment from inmates as part of their jobs. Slowly but surely even the “normal” man will start showing sadistic behavior.
There are steps that can be taken to improve the situation. Reducing inmates per cell, preferably to one or two per cell, minimizing contact with prisoners and guards could be a first step. This first step will not be easy as we do not have a prison built with this in mind, and most nations do not. The success of North Brach Correctional Institution is the United States which houses some of the most dangerous criminals in US, should be something worth looking at. The first phase of the prison is now complete and inmates who used to spend 23 hrs in single cells can now enjoy more freedom. The guards are also under watch due to 24 hrs surveillance of the whole facility, and with hardly any contact with guards and prisoners, chances of abuse or mistreatment are minimized.
In order to live in a society free from crime, the community has to pay a price. We need a modern facility to house convicted people where they can be rehabilitated and able to join the society as decent people. In order to achieve this, no price is too high to pay. To build a modern new prison and train guards, counselors will cost a lot, but wouldn’t it be worth the investment to get back the youth of this country?
