NOT HARD TO IMAGINE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ROLES ARE SOCIAL WORKERS AND FAMILIES.

WHY CAN'T CHILD PROTECTION SOCIAL WORKERS BE TRUSTED WITHOUT OVERSIGHT?

An Important but Rarely Discussed Lesson of the Stanford Prison Experiment

Power corrupts, but power doesn't corrupt everyone equally

NOT HARD TO IMAGINE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE ROLES ARE

SOCIAL WORKERS AND FAMILIES.

The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted from August 14 to 20,1971 by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University. It was funded by a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research and was of interest to both the US Navy and Marine Corps in order to determine the causes of conflict between military guards and prisoners.

Twenty-four students were selected out of 75 to play the prisoners and live in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Roles were assigned randomly. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond what even Zimbardo himself expected, leading the "officers" to display authoritarian measures and ultimately to subject some of the prisoners to torture. In turn, many of the prisoners developed passive attitudes and accepted physical abuse, and, at the request of the guards, readily inflicted punishment on other prisoners who attempted to stop it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his capacity as "Prison Superintendent", lost sight of his role as psychologist and permitted the abuse to continue as though it were a real prison.

Five of the prisoners were upset enough by the process to quit the experiment early, and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. The experimental process and the results remain controversial. The entire experiment was filmed, with excerpts made publicly available. See The Site Here: http://www.prisonexp.org/

The Children’s Aid Societies feel it is their role to investigate calls made by the public using a professional and internalized standardized process that avoids all the normal checks, balances and judicial oversight, in others words, all the procedural safeguards guaranteed in the Constitution, Charter of Rights and in so doing violates fundamental justice (due process).

What happens when you call the CAS?

Calls are answered by trained unregistered child protection social workers.

These ‘front-line’ workers are part customer service rep, part counselor, part funding coordinator and their role is to listen carefully to help meet the agency's funding goals. There are several teams who work together to provide services 24/7 in your communities.

When you call, you will be asked questions to help us determine how much support a family may need. Sometimes we can provide assistance over the phone. Other times, we will recommend that one of our workers set up a time to visit with a family or an induction worker may visit a family right away based on the nature and severity of the concern without a warrant with police assistance to intimidate parents and bully their way into the home to conduct a surprise search of the while threatening to remove any children if the parents fail to cooperate and sign consent forms, service agreements and submit to various forms testing to see if there are any other ways we can help.