Cherry Hospital, NC: Zimbardo's "UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES"?? : Beserk patients and the minimal, poorly paid & poorly trained staff

The mental hospitals in NC have very difficult populations with which to deal with AND it does not seem that they are learning lessons re: how to do this in the most appropriate manner which undoubtedly is associated with HIRING MORE PEOPLE so that incidents do not happen like this---and

THAT IS THE JURISDICTION OF NC DHHS AND THE NC STATE LEGISLATURE.

You can fire the individuals but until the 'stage' is altered, the incidents will simply repeat themselves, more subtly perhaps. And it cannot be dismissed that MH workers are injured during these altercations w/ patients:

Amidst crisis in North Carolina, mental health workers struggle for justice
June 16, 2008

"The mental health care system in North Carolina is in a state of crisis. More than 1,000 workers are put out of work due to injuries each year."

http://raleighfist.wordpress.com/2008/06/16/amidst-crisis-in-north-carolina-mental-health-workers-struggle-for-justice/

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SO, WE'VE GOT VIDEO CAMS IN THE NC STATE MENTAL HOSPITALS......and what do they tell us?

As per Steven Sabock sitting in his chair, choking on his meds, and rolling out of his bed to hit his head, they paint a picture of a non-engaged staff, playing cards, ignoring patients, and documenting the patient as (per Raleigh News & Observer article cited below) as not hungry and needing no attention.

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WE'VE GOT VIDEOS OF ZIMBARDO'S STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT INCLUSIVE OF THE DIRECTIONS HE, AS THE 'PRISON SUPERINTENDANT' GAVE THE STUDENT GUARDS:


Guards force prisoners to do push-ups, while another (standing) is made to sing.


"The Stanford Prison Study video, quoted in Haslam & Reicher, 2003, Zimbardo is seen telling the guards, "You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system, you, me, and they'll have no privacy… We're going to take away their individuality in various ways. In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. That is, in this situation we'll have all the power and they'll have none."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

In Zimbardo's 1971 prison experiment, students, assigned to the role of 'guards' (who were students at Stanford) began to beat up on, and humiliate, the 'prisoners' (who were also Stanford students).

Here is an outline of how the experiment was put together.

"....In August of 1971, Phillip Zimbardo headed up a simulation study of the psychology of imprisonment. The study took place at Stanford University, with volunteers from the University itself. Zimbardo had two specific questions in mind that he hoped to answer after the study was complete. The two questions were: What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? (Zimbardo, 1999-2007). ...

After the prisoner’s and guards all arrived at the prison, the guards began their duties. The prisoners were dressed in muslim smocks and they were not allowed to wear underwear. They were given a pair of thong sandles and numbers were sewn into their uniforms which would be their new form of identity; they would no longer be called by their names. The prisoner’s were required to wear a stocking over their head to make it look as if their heads had been shaved. They also had to wear an ankle bracelet to constantly remind them of the imprisonment and oppression (Stanford, 2007).

On the second day of the experiment, trouble began. There was a lot of emotional and psychological distress amongst those participating. Before the study was even over, 2 prisoners had to be released due to extreme suffering that lead to potentially life-threatening effects. The study was intended to last for 2 weeks, but had to be stopped on the sixth day due to both the guards and prisoners suffering emotionally and psychologically. The results of the study tied into the study of electrical shock that was done by Stanley Milgram. From his study, Zimbardo was able to prove that “most evil is the product of rather ORDINARY PEOPLE CAUGHT UP IN UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES THAT THEY ARE NOT EQUIPPED TO COPE WITH IN THE NORMAL WAYS” (Farmer, 2007)...."

http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/stanford-prison-experiment

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WHAT HAPPENED ON THAT SECOND DAY DURING THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT?

"....After a relatively uneventful first day, a riot broke out on the second day. The guards volunteered to work extra hours and worked together to break the prisoner revolt, attacking the prisoners with fire extinguishers without supervision from the research staff...."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

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Over 50 people viewed the conditions of the 'prison.' One might assume that these were people who did not want to ruffle Zimbardo as the superintendant and as an already well-regarded Stanford University teacher. They were the 'good Germans':

"Zimbardo concluded the experiment early when Christina Maslach, a graduate student he was then dating (and later married), objected to the appalling conditions of the prison after she was introduced to the experiment to conduct interviews. Zimbardo noted that of more than fifty outside persons who had seen the prison, Maslach was the only one who questioned its morality. After only six days of a planned two weeks' duration, the Stanford Prison experiment was shut down."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

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Zimbardo's experiment was also very vividly recreated by German film makers. They ran their experiment to a chilling conclusion such as might have been part and parcel of Abu Gharaib or Guantanamo Bay:

Das Experiment
Das Experiment ("The Experiment" in the US) is a 2001 German movie directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and inspired by the events of the Stanford prison experiment in the United States. It is based on the novel Black Box by Mario Giordano.

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AND SO RETURNING TO THE MATTER OF CHERRY HOSPITAL, WHERE PATIENTS HAVE BEEN BEAT, BY BOTH THE MENTAL HEALTH TECHNICIANS AS WELL AS THE PSYCHIATRIST....

http://www.newsobserver.com/2771/story/1193980.html#MI_Comments_Link

"...Vickory (the county DA) said Monday that hospital police and administrators never told his office about the video footage of the assault."

("I didn't know about any of this", said the county DA.)
("I don't see anything morally repugnant about this Stanford experiment.")

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"Vickory said the two mutually agreed to drop the charges against one other."

(so, the patient and the person that the patient might run into again in the future, agreed to drop charges on each other, and this was OK w/ the county DA).

(("One of the most abused prisoners, #416, and the guard known as "John Wayne", who was one of the most abusive guards, confront each other in an "encounter session" two months later.": see wikipedia, Stanford experiment)

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"Jack St. Clair, the hospital director, has not returned calls requesting comment about Sabock's death or the arrest of two more employees on Friday for beating a patient last week. "

(Jack St. Clair is avoiding owning up to his responsibility as a leader of the hospital)

(Zimbardo, as the 'prison superintendant' lost his bearings until he was grilled by Christina Maslach, pertaining to the perverse conditions of the 'Stanford Prison')

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"Federal officials have cited Cherry for serious deficiencies in the care of both Sabock and Luciano, and have threatened to cut off millions in Medicaid and Medicare payments from the hospital. "


SBI probing patient's death
Local prosecutor invited its help
Michael Biesecker, Staff Writer

RALEIGH - The district attorney for Wayne County has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to review the inaction of Cherry Hospital employees who played cards and watched television as a dying patient sat unattended a few feet away.

Hospital administrators and internal police have not always provided all evidence against their employees, District Attorney C. Brandon Vickory III said Monday. Last week, he invited the SBI to investigate the death of Steven H. Sabock, 50. A patient at the Goldsboro state mental hospital, Sabock died after choking on his medication, hitting his head on the floor and then being left in a chair for 22 hours without food or water.

In the last two years, Vickory's office has dropped cases against at least six hospital workers arrested for assault. Vickory, prosecutor for Greene, Wayne and Lenoir counties, said Monday that the facts of what happens inside the state mental hospital are often murky. But on April 29, a security camera captured footage showing the hospital's staff ignoring Sabock sitting in a day room through parts of four shifts, according to a report issued by federal regulators last week.

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