Ethical Violations

Zimbaro remembers the turning point within the study, where he realized that, "these were real boys who were really suffering. And that fact had escaped me. I and everyone else around me except for that graduate student--had gotten so far into their prison role prisoner, guard, superintendent, whatever that it was hard to separate reality from the simulation."
Phillip Zimbardo, Quiet Rage.

Zimbardo interfered by giving the guards instructions during their orientation. He told them, "we can create bore­dom. We can create a sense of frustration. We can create fear in them, to some degree. We can create a notion of the arbitrariness that governs their lives, which are totally controlled by us, by the system, by you, me, Jaffe. They'll have no pri­vacy at all, there will be constant surveillance—nothing they do will go unob­served. They will have no freedom of action. They will be able to do nothing and say nothing that we don't permit. We're going to take away their individuality in various ways."
Phillip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect, Pg. 55.

During visiting day, Zimbardo interfered with the study by improving the treatment of the prisoners, in order to prevent them from complaining to their families about the bad conditions in which they were subjected to.  Zimbardo shares, "we first grossly manipulated the situation, and then we subtly manipulated the visitors. We did the "hypocrisy" trip to make the prison environment seem pleasant to the parents and undercut any complaints the prisoners might present to them. We washed, shaved and groomed the prisoners, had them clean and polish their cells; we removed all the signs, fed them a big dinner, played music on the intercom, and even had an attractive co-ed, Susie Phillips, greet the visitors at our registration desk."
​​​​​​​ Phillip Zimbardo, The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pg. 8.

Not only was his interference unethical, it hurt the experiment. After receiving a warning that the prisoners were planning a potential escape, Zimbardo recalls, "we had spent one entire day planning to foil the escape, went begging to the Police Department, cleaned up the storeroom, moved our prisoners, dismantled most of the prison, we didn't even collect any data during the entire day."
Phillip Zimbardo, The Stanford Prison Experiment, Pg. 10

Zimbardo interfered by exaggerating the results of the study. Prisoner 8612 recalls, “the only thing that’s always troubled me through the years is that the experiment is interesting to people like you and the general public because it makes you wonder, you hope that you wouldn’t be a bad person like those sadistic a**hole guards, and so the experiment is compelling and interesting to people because it brings up that issue, oh I hope I wouldn’t be a horrible, nasty person, and that’s the message that Zimbardo wants to send and what's interesting to me about this is that only two of the guards were sadistic, the other eight were not, so why are we talking about the other eight guards that weren’t a**holes, that weren’t sadistic, why are we only talking about the two little horrible guys. And well the reason we’re talking about them is because that’s what interests people."
Douglas Korpi, Interview.

Zimbardo remembers, "to the prisoners, we said, wait at home. The study will begin Sunday. We didn't tell them that the city police were going to come and do realistic arrests."
Phillip Zimbardo, The Psychology of Evil.

"Each prisoner, still blindfolded and still in a state of mild shock over the surprise arrest by the police, is put into a car of one of our men and driven to the Stanford County Jail for further processing. The prisoners are brought into the jail one at a time and greeted by the warden. Each prisoner is searched and then systematically stripped naked. He is then deloused, a procedure designed in part to humiliate him and in part to be sure he isn’t bringing in any germs to contaminate our jail."
Phillip Zimbardo, The Stanford Prison Experiment, pg. 2-3.

Prisoner Doug Korpi felt confused as he remembers thinking 'I needed to study for a graduate record exam and I thought oh my god this is a great thing this is a prison experiment I’ll have all this time in a cell. I’ll bring my books I’ll study. I thought it was the perfect job.' But then once, we were in these cells and I learned that they weren’t gonna let anybody come in to give me my books. I thought well wait a minute in prison they give you books. How can you deny this in an experiment and there's nothing to do." This deprivation and loss of freedom which he felt during the study led him to have a mental breakdown. 
Douglas Korpi, The Hallway.

The guards knew that Zimbardo was supervising the experiment the entire time, and took his lack of interference as a sign to continue controlling the prisoners. One guard recalls thinking "how far can I push these things and how much abuse will these people take before they say ‘knock it off?’ But the other guards didn’t stop me. They seemed to join in. They were taking my lead. Not a single guard said ‘I don’t think we should do this."
Dave Eshelman, The Menace Within, Pg. 10.

Zimbardo chose not to intervene even though he recalls "watching all this on the television monitors in my office with one of my graduate students. I was amazed that the guard would keep that boy in solitary all night as punishment for not eating cold, dirty sausages. I was amazed that the prisoners would keep their blankets rather than let 416 out of the hole."
Phillip Zimbardo, Quiet Rage.

Christina Maslach "is the woman who stopped the Stanford Prison Study. When I said it got out of control, I was the prison superintendent. I didn't know it was out of control. I was totally indifferent. She saw that madhouse and said, "You know what, it's terrible what you're doing to those boys. They're not prisoners nor guards, they're boys, and you are responsible. And I ended the study the next day."
Phillip Zimbardo, The Psychology of Evil.