Thinking about the stanford prison experiments. You know, that famously unethical clusterfuck led by a guy who should've lost his licence for how irresponsibly he ran this experiment.
Where basically he took a bunch of college dudes and amped them up to feel like nothing they did could have any real world consequences, and then gave them real power over other students and it went off the rails so bad they cancelled the whole thing in a week.
And the study itself doesn't mean much in terms of the prison psychology they were trying to study, but it was an interesting demonstration of how certain people can be rather easily goaded into acts of extreme cruelty.
Also thinking about who ICE recruits and how they dehumanize their targets while creating a culture of imperviousness to consequences, and then giving them real power over other people.
Except this experiment didn't stop in a week. It's been ongoing for over two decades. The cruelty has only gotten worse as their power expands.
It's not speculation. We've seen how they behave in broad daylight, in public and on camera. What do you think they're doing when no one can see?
This is true for law enforcement agencies as a whole too, but I'm thinking about ICE in particular right now, because they currently have the most funding and the least oversight.
