This looks like institutionalized sadism

There's a chicken-and-egg question to the guard/officer thing. It's possible people with certain tendencies seek out that sort of employment, but, as one of the world's most famous psych experiments showed, it's also possible the job brings out behavioural tendencies in people who previously exhibited no such thing.

I have no words. Just when my faith in humanity starts to recover a bit, something like this comes out and it gets even lower.

AW Admin said:

I can't understand the decision. All I can see that that a black man with schizophrenia was apparently not of any value as a human being to Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.


This article was linked in the previous link, but I'm posting it so people can read it.

Click to expand...

That's how I read it too, and the lack of generalized outrage, publicity (at the time of the crime), and (apparent) lack of calls for her resignation over this decision suggests that this mans life was of no value to much of the general pubic either.

I can't think of a worse way to die that being scalded to death, and I can't believe the guards had no idea how hot the water was or how much pain their victim was in. The only question I have is whether they intended to kill him from the start of their "punishment," or if they got caught up in a sort of "Lord of the Flies," sadistic frenzy. Even if it were the latter, it's inexcusable and unforgivable.

If the shower was "neither dangerous nor unsafe", just what exactly is the man supposed to have died of? Natural causes? Soap allergy?

Marian Perera said:

If the shower was "neither dangerous nor unsafe", just what exactly is the man supposed to have died of? Natural causes? Soap allergy?

Click to expand...

Cardiac arrest, of course. It's a safe, fallback cause of death when one doesn't want to probe further, because, hey, most of the time when one dies from disease or trauma, the cessation of a heartbeat is the proxmal "cause" of death. The man's heart finally stopped, whether it was from hyperthermia or shock from the severe burns that covered most of his body. It looks so tidy on a coroner's report.

I have a bit of personal bitterness about this, because "cardiac arrest" was the official cause of death for my aunt (who bled out internally from liver cirrhosis) and for my dad, who died from an arrhythmia caused by a virus that gave him pericarditis. Neither were in prison, but even so, it was only significant pressure from my brother (who is medical doctor) that got the family more information about the ultimate cause of each of these "cardiac arrests."

Out in the world, I assume the motivation for glossing things over (when murder isn't suspected) is to save money or to get quick closure for families that don't really care why or how someone had a "heart attack," or maybe don't even want to know the gory details about the state of their aunt's liver. In institutionalized settings, it's harder not to speculate about other motives.

But even without a motivation to cover up abuse and murder, the coroner would likely have no motivation to provide the family with more information when the victim is a mentally ill prisoner and no one in his family has the clout or connections to demand a better, more comprehensive report.

I can't help but wonder now how many prisoners (and others in state custody) officially die of "cardiac arrest" when there's a lot more to the story.

AW Admin said:

Note too that in this instance he was covered with severe burns.

Click to expand...

And how anyone could gloss over the significance of this is beyond me.

The very best explanation would be gross, criminal negligence if, say, the guards convinced someone they didn't know how hot the water was in the shower (or that they thought they were using cold water--though two hours of that would be dangerous too) and never bothered to check. These people are supposed to be trained and to have procedures and so on, right? So even in this case, they should be charged with something serious and lose their jobs.

No charges at all is mind boggling.

This is even worse than the unjustified police shootings that aren't prosecuted.

So they put a man in a hot shower, for two hours, until he was dead.

But

Sgt. John Fan Fan, and officers Cornelius Thompson, Ronald Clarke and Edwina Williams — the staffers involved in putting Rainey into the shower — did not act with premeditation, malice, recklessness, ill-will, hatred or evil intent, the state attorney said.

Click to expand...

Yeah, right.

This incident--and others like it--were covered extensively in the following article: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-torturing-of-mentally-ill-prisoners.

This is a pattern at that particular facility--patients with mental illnesses are denied meals, beaten, and subjected to punishments similar to the one Rainey suffered. It's a goddamn horror show--one that apparently has the tacit acceptance of the state attorney.

How the hell could anyone claim the shower wasn't unsafe when it was demonstrably hot enough to cause severe burns? Regardless of whether the burns were the cause of death, that's still clearly unsafe.

cornflake said:

There's a chicken-and-egg question to the guard/officer thing. It's possible people with certain tendencies seek out that sort of employment, but, as one of the world's most famous psych experiments showed, it's also possible the job brings out behavioural tendencies in people who previously exhibited no such thing.

Click to expand...

I also wonder how many decent corrections staff either leave the career because it's too stressful or gradually become more complacent and inclined to trust their coworkers' perspectives over those of the prisoners (who are often difficult to manage).

There really needs to be zero tolerance against any excessive force against an inmate or negligence that results in death or serious harm.

DancingMaenid said:

How the hell could anyone claim the shower wasn't unsafe when it was demonstrably hot enough to cause severe burns? Regardless of whether the burns were the cause of death, that's still clearly unsafe.



I also wonder how many decent corrections staff either leave the career because it's too stressful or gradually become more complacent and inclined to trust their coworkers' perspectives over those of the prisoners (who are often difficult to manage).

Click to expand...

I know a couple of people who have worked in corrections, and early retirements are common. One friend worked at CA's most controversial CA department of juvenile justice facility, (it was used to house the most serious underage offenders, and it was basically run like an adult prison with lots of allegations of abuse over the years). She took her retirement when she hit the twenty year mark, even though sticking for another five would have increased her benefits considerably. She was only in her early 50s at the time, but she said she didn't think her health would hold out for another five years, and too many of her co-workers had died of heart attacks. She had some hair-raising stories.

She's a kind person, the sort who would give you the shirt off her back, and is very even tempered. She genuinely liked many of her wards and admitted there were problems. But she did get a bit defensive when the facility was lambasted by the press. "People have no idea what it's like to work with some of these kids, how hard it is to keep them from killing one another or us," she said a couple of times.

So I get that it's a very, very stressful to do these jobs, and that people snap sometimes.

But the case in Florida wasn't "just" a guard losing it and hitting, or even beating, a prisoner. This act took coordination and premeditation.

To say I'm sickened by this is putting it mildly.

cornflake said:

There's a chicken-and-egg question to the guard/officer thing. It's possible people with certain tendencies seek out that sort of employment, but, as one of the world's most famous psych experiments showed, it's also possible the job brings out behavioural tendencies in people who previously exhibited no such thing.

Click to expand...

I think it likely is a combination of pre-existing tendencies mixed with an environment that fosters/exacerbates those behaviors. Like you said, a particular type of person is likely drawn to being a corrections officer (of course, not the case for all CO's, but it probably is for many of them). As an anecdotal example, I went to high school with a guy who was always a cruel bully. The teachers never put a stop to it because he was pretty sneaky about it and bullied kids behind the scenes, during times he knew he could get away with it. What career does he have now? Yep, he's a corrections officer at a local prison.

The Stanford Prison experiment actually didn't show what most people think it did. Not only was it one of the most poorly designed, poorly controlled studies ever conducted, most of the narrative surrounding it are nothing more than myths. The "guards" in that study were actually coached on what to do to the prisoners and how to treat them. Months before the experiment began, Zimbardo contacted a former convict, Carlo Prescott, who'd served time in San Quentin's "Spanish Prison" for murder. He told Zimbardo exactly what the guards needed to do in order to ensure maximum cruelty and deindividuation in the "prisoners." It wasn't until years later that Prescott went public to expose Zimbardo's lies and Zimbardo then finally admitted that he had misrepresented many of the details of the study (well, he sort of admitted it. He still plays it down and acts like he did nothing wrong).

These weren't behaviors and attitudes that just came out of thin air due to the role they were assigned. They were told exactly what to do and that's what they did. And Zimbardo just let them continue to act that way. He never told them to stop. He never stepped in and gave them any corrective direction. He told them to be dicks, taught them how to be dicks, and then sat back and watched.

That's likely similar to what happened in the OP's story. This kind of environment is full of people who knew exactly what they were doing and were allowed to continue acting that way. This type of shit goes all the way to the top. It's leadership's fault just as much as it is the guards.

Opty said:

The Stanford Prison experiment actually didn't show what most people think it did. Not only was it one of the most poorly designed, poorly controlled studies ever conducted, most of the narrative surrounding it are nothing more than myths. The "guards" in that study were actually coached on what to do to the prisoners and how to treat them. Months before the experiment began, Zimbardo contacted a former convict, Carlo Prescott, who'd served time in San Quentin's "Spanish Prison" for murder. He told Zimbardo exactly what the guards needed to do in order to ensure maximum cruelty and deindividuation in the "prisoners." It wasn't until years later that Prescott went public to expose Zimbardo's lies and Zimbardo then finally admitted that he had misrepresented many of the details of the study (well, he sort of admitted it. He still plays it down and acts like he did nothing wrong).

Click to expand...

This. Though it does show that people will do sadistic things if coached to do so by someone in a position of authority. Which might be a problem in some prisons, police departments and military installations, I suppose.

Its results never supported the hypothesis that people will spontaneously perform such acts, however.

Opty, do you know if anyone has designed better-controlled experiments to test this hypothesis since? It's widely believed (at least) that having absolute power over others, without oversight, will lead to abuse, even if particularly creative acts of sadism wouldn't occur to most people without coaching (or lots of time to practice and discover them). It would be useful to actually test that assumption.

Re the this particularly hideous murder, I seriously hope some lawyers or civil rights organization will help the victim's family take the state on in a civil court for civil rights infringement and wrongful death, at least. Sometimes it's easier to get a measure of justice that way.

I think it's all part of an underlying theme of "keeping the riffraff in check in spite of the softie laws through examples and demonstrations of force."

You know when in the 1960's protesting students would hold their own against the police in daytime, in front of the press, at night the police would don masks and prowl the streets to beat up anyone they catch? Or when in the 1970's protesting homosexuals would hold their own against the police in daytime, at night they'd raid the bars and beat people up?

Or that holding house in Chicago into which they would disappear people until like last year for a few days or weeks before maybe letting them contact lawyers and family?

It's a "dark underbelly" thing which corresponds to the fascist mindset that "the world is dark and full of terror" and the only way to handle it is to pretend to follow the lenient rules of modern fancy laws and public opinion, but when public opinion is not there--it's back to the Neolith, because that's how things "really get done" in this tough, man's world.

They'd yell at you: "This is what keeps you safe! When we do this stuff and put the fear of God into the scum! You think your fancy smartphones and your social justice bubbles keep civilization going? No! We do! We do what we have to to keep civilization going!" And they'd make damn sure to believe themselves.

Like the Apartheid guys in South Africa were "defending civilization" the whole time. Or Hitler and Mussolini, for that matter.

“The shower was itself neither dangerous nor unsafe,’’ the report says. “The evidence does not show that Rainey’s well-being was grossly disregarded by the correctional staff.’’

Click to expand...

Neither is a pencil until the wrong person picks it up.

Riot much?

It seems that Florida's prison system has had a serious problem with inmates being assaulted and possibly murdered. And this article that talks about Rainey's death provides some insight into how these prisons create an environment where people who would normally want to speak up and help are intimidated into keeping quiet and face obstruction when they do try to say something.

I think to a large extent, the main issues that contribute to this problem are 1. the tendency in law enforcement-related careers to close rank and 2. the fact that a lot of people are very easily intimidated by authority figures and groupthink. When people do try to say something, they're either actively discouraged or the abuse is treated so nonchalantly that it makes people doubt themselves. I honestly don't think I would be able to sit back and not do anything, but I was also someone who was pretty immune to peer pressure as a kid. For a lot of people, it can go either way.

Roxxsmom said:

Opty, do you know if anyone has designed better-controlled experiments to test this hypothesis since? It's widely believed (at least) that having absolute power over others, without oversight, will lead to abuse, even if particularly creative acts of sadism wouldn't occur to most people without coaching (or lots of time to practice and discover them). It would be useful to actually test that assumption.

Click to expand...

Given it's bad reputation, it's generally considered a taboo type of study that no one would touch with a 10 foot pole.

But, there was a sort of "replication-in-spirit" done about 15 years ago in conjunction with the BBC. It was a bit controversial because it kind of came across as more "reality show" than serious scientific study - and it's really tough to properly control this type of study - but it produced some interesting findings.

Namely, the results illustrated that participation in these roles isn't some unconscious, involuntary action. They strongly suggest that environmental influences and the interplay of various group dynamics - as well as the psychological baggage that people bring to the situation themselves - all interact to create a situation in which people are willing participants.

People in these types of situations are often active, conscious agents behaving in ways that support group cohesion and bolster self and group identity. Which makes the situation in the OP even more disgusting to me. These people all knew what they were doing and it seems that dissenting voices were silenced by coercion.

Opty said:

People in these types of situations are often active, conscious agents behaving in ways that support group cohesion and bolster self and group identity. Which makes the situation in the OP even more disgusting to me. These people all knew what they were doing and it seems that dissenting voices were silenced by coercion.

Click to expand...

I think this is pretty clear. Four people participated in torturing someone to death. Not a single one of them took a step back and said, "OMG, what are we doing?"

But the complacency of the state Attorney really blows my mind. Even if some really horrible people end up becoming prison guards, or the horrible group dynamics, training, and pressures of the job turn some people into monsters, I can't understand why the person who is supposed to provide oversight simply shrugged it off. Politics is the only answer I can come up with. So why in the hell has approving of this sort of thing become politically expedient? How did our culture become so "evil"?

It's not a new thing, or just for convicts, or just done by hardened prison officers: the Magdalen laundries, residential 'schools' for First Nations children in North America, and Aboriginal children in Australia, orphans in general, etc.
Any set-up where people are left in charge of the vulnerable and defenseless, with no-one to fight back against the 'caretakers', seems set up for abuse. Heck, there's a thread in Conquering Challenges about a current case of elder abuse, also not uncommon.

I'd bet there are two factors at play, people who think they can do as they want, and supervisors who either condone their actions or egg them on. After a while, people who aren't like that either suspect what's going on and don't apply to that facility, or are weeded out as not being 'our kind of people'.