ABSTRACT
The notorious abuses that took place in the fall of 2003 at the Baghdad Central Confinement Facility, known to the world as Abu Ghraib, provoked a rapid response from social scientists eager to explain to the world how and why these abuses occurred (American Psychological Association [APA] 2004; Fiske et al. 2004; Staub 2004). In popular articles, commentary, and interviews, the consensus among social scientists who have addressed themselves to these matters seems to include at least the following: (1) the abuses at Abu Ghraib were partly rooted in the same psychological mechanisms underlying the obedient behavior of Stanley Milgram’s subjects in his classic experiments (Milgram 1963, 1974); (2) the events at Abu Ghraib are real-world examples of the behavior exhibited during the Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo 1973; Zimbardo et al. 2000); and (3) the events at Abu Ghraib underscore the power of the situation in determining human behavior. Speaking of the Stanford and Abu Ghraib prisons, Philip Zimbardo said, “It’s not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything it touches” (APA 2004). These commentators have offered suggestions for steps that might be taken to prevent such abuses in the future, including improved supervision, greater transparency and accountability, increased staffing, better training, and, in one case, a suggestion that the Army seek advice from corrections experts in the Navy, Air Force, and civilian sectors (APA 2004). We argue that these analyses are too narrow and fail to confront the issue of detainee abuse as comprehensively and effectively as may be done, if the events are considered from a broader perspective, incorporating the individual, organizational, and societal domains.
