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Friday's Fade to Black
We have so much to do to take down our prison in a matter of hours. Curt, Jaffe,
and I are already exhausted from the hectic day and night we have just endured.
In addition, in the middle of the night we have to decide on all the arrangements
for debriefing sessions, final evaluations, and disbursement of payments and per-
sonal belongings, as well as cancellation of afternoon visits from colleagues who
had planned to help us interview everyone connected with this study. We also
have to cancel various arrangements with the cafeteria food service, return the
rented cots and handcuffs to the campus police, and more.
We know that we each have to do double duty, monitoring the Yard action,
taking short catnaps, and laying out the final day's logistics. We will announce
the end of the study immediately after the public defender's visit. It was already
scheduled for the morning, and it would be an appropriate event around which to
wrap up the whole experience. We decide not to tell the guards before informing
the prisoners of the good news from me directly. I anticipate that the guards will
be angry to learn that the study is being terminated prematurely, especially now,
when they believe that they are in total control and are anticipating an easy week
ahead, with some new replacements. They have learned how to be "guards." Ob-
viously, their learning curve has peaked.
Jaffe will contact the five prisoners who had been released earlier and invite
them back around noontime to share in the debriefing and get their full week's
pay. I have to ask all the guard shifts either to come by at noon or to hang around
until then for a "special event." Having anticipated that there were supposed to be
full staff interviews by outsiders on Friday, the guards expect some new element
to be added, but not this abrupt end to their jobs.
If all goes as planned, there will be an hour of prisoner debriefing around one
o'clock, then the same for the guards for an hour, and finally all the guards and
prisoners will come together for a full encounter. While each group is engaged,
Friday's Fade to Black 175
the other group will complete our final evaluation forms, be paid, and have the
opportunity either to keep their uniforms as souvenirs or to turn them in. If they
wish, they can also take the various signs we posted in the Yard and on the Hole.
We also have to arrange a big farewell lunch for everyone and make arrange-
ments for them all to return soon to view selected videos and discuss their reac-
tions from a more detached perspective.
Before taking my nap on the convertible couch in my upstairs professor's
office, where I have been sleeping fitfully for most of the week, I tell the morning
shift guards to let the prisoners sleep through the night and to minimize any fur-
ther hostility against the prisoners. They shrug their shoulders and nod, as
though Dad were telling them not to have fun on the playground.
FRIDAY'S FINAL COUNT
For the first time in a week, the prisoners have been allowed to sleep for nearly six
unbroken hours. The accrued interest on their sleep debt must have been enor-
mous. It is hard to determine the effects on their moods and their thinking that
was caused by having their sleeping and dreaming disrupted so often every night.
It was probably considerable. The emotional breakdown of some of the early-
released prisoners may have been amplified by their sleep disturbances.
The 7:05 A.M. count lasts only ten minutes. Numbers are called out and
other innocuous rituals observed. A good hot breakfast is served to the final five
survivors. As might have been expected, Clay-416 refuses to eat any breakfast
food, even when the other prisoners gently encourage him to do so.
Despite my instructions to go easy on the prisoners, the guards go ballistic at
Clay's continued insubordination. "Everyone down for fifty push-ups if 416 don't
eat his breakfast. " Clay-416 does not budge but just stares down at his food plate.
Vandy and Ceros try to force-feed him, stuffing food into his mouth as he spits it
out. They enlist 5704 and 2093 to help them, but to no avail. Clay-416 is put
back into his cell and forced to "make love" to his dinner sausages. Ceros orders
him to caress them, to hug them, and then to kiss them. Clay-416 does all that.
Yet he is true to his word and never eats a single bite of them.
Guard Vandy is upset at 416's defiance and also at his buddy's meanspirited-
ness. In his retrospective diary, Vandy said, "When 416 refused to eat I was once
again angered specifically, since there was no way to force the food down his
throat, even though we let some other prisoners try. Andre [Ceros] made the pris-
oner hug and kiss and caress a day-old sausage after being made to sleep with it. I
thought this was uncalled for. I would never ever make the prisoner do this."
1
What does Guard Ceros have to say about his own behavior? His retrospective
diary noted, "I decided to force feed him, but he wouldn't eat. I let the food slide
down his face. I didn't believe it was me doing it. I hated myself for making him
eat. I hated him for not eating. I hated the reality of human behavior."
2
The day shift came on at ten as usual. I told the lead guard, Arnett, to keep it
176 The Lucifer Effect
cool and mellow in light of the coming legal representation. His day shift critical
incident report indicated that Clay-416 was undergoing some strange changes in
spite of his Zen meditation and earlier surface calm. Arnett's incident report
noted:
416 is very jumpy. He jerked as I took the bag off his head for the toilet run.
Had to pull him along when leading him to and from the bathroom, even
though I told him I was not going to run him into anything [which the
guards often did to prisoners for spite]. He was very nervous about being
punished. I held his sausages when he went to the toilet. He tried to get me
to give him back his sausages since another guard had ordered him to al-
ways have them."
3
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