In the prison where I worked (and in most prisons, I suspect), there are two sets of rules. There are the official rules, which you learn during training and carry in a booklet in your pocket. And then there are the real rules-- the knowing what you can and cannot get away with.
Prison officers, in charge of people who are usually not nice, are bound to overstep the rules occasionally. The infractions may be relatively minor, like forgetting to unlock the cell of a difficult inmate when it's recreation time, or more serious, like participating in an 'adjustment' of an abusive inmate. And when and if the incidents are made public, the test is always: will your superiors back you up? Is the boss a good guy or a jerk? Which rule book does he follow?
JOHN SCHWARTZ writes about the banality of evil:
In 1971 researchers at Stanford University created a simulated prison in the basement of the campus psychology building. They randomly assigned 24 students to be either prison guards or prisoners for two weeks.
Within days the "guards" had become swaggering and sadistic, to the point of placing bags over the prisoners' heads, forcing them to strip naked and encouraging them to perform sexual acts...
"It's not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything that it touches."
So what are people so surprised about? And I find a lot of the outrage somewhat suspect: domestically, much of it is anti-Bush rhetoric, and internationally anti-American. As Fouad Ajami said on a broadcast, where's the outrage against Arab abuses?
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