Jailed: serious experiment or stunt?

Clutching his hotwater bottle, a pack of cards and a few precious family photos, Ian Burnett walked towards his cell to spend his first night in jail.

One minute he was an IT supervisor working in the City, the next he was Prisoner 922, a guinea pig in what is set to be one of the most controversial and talkedabout TV programmes of the year, The Experiment, starting on 14 May.

Already critics, and even some of those involved, are describing this fascinating programme - which is intended to be a serious scientific examination of authoritarianism and the abuse of power - as a cruel, crude, Big-Brother-style voyeuristic exercise that ridicules its subjects and cheapens scientific debate.

It is a remake of the infamous Stanford experiment carried out 30 years ago in which a group of students were split into "prisoners" and "guards", left alone for a week and observed as they confronted each other, swiftly becoming torturers and victims in a revealing expos? of just how power corrupts.

But what was it really like to be a "prisoner", watched for 24 hours a day by closed-circuit cameras and specially selected "guards", all of whom had answered an innocuous advert in national newspapers asking: "Do you really know yourself ?" And why has the BBC spent millions recreating such a distasteful and psychologically damaging stunt?

The Evening Standard has been given an insight into how 15 men taking part in the project saw their personalities brutally transformed over nine extraordinary days.

For the experiment, part of Elstree studios in Hertfordshire was rebuilt to make it look like a high-tech jail, with electronic doors locking behind inmates as they moved around. The 12ft square cells were fitted with three single bunks, a stainless-steel sink and a toilet.

But this "prison" has mirrored walls, behind which cameras spy on the prisoners 24 hours a day, echoing the Stanford experiment, which had to be stopped after just six days when the brutality of the "guards", bored by their confinement, led to some volunteers - either having been abused or regretting their sadistic actions - breaking down. The abuse included night strip searches, making prisoners clean the toilets with their hands and tripping up inmates when they walked past.

As a result, Professor Philip Zimbardo, the mastermind behind the original experiment, no longer feels it is ethical to do research in this way. "I am amazed a British university psychology department would be involved," he said. Undaunted, psychologists Steve Reicher from St Andrews University and Exeter University's Alex Haslam decided to arrange their own study, and the BBC was happy to provide a platform.

"We felt that there were so many unanswered questions with Zimbardo's study and wanted to carry out our own research to discover what the balance is between power and resistance," says Dr Reicher.

"We seriously questioned Zimbardo's results. It quickly became evident to us that people actually have an ambivalence to power. The prisoners did not want to endure it and, contrary to Zimbardo's study, the guards did not want to inflict it."

Their experiment started last October when more than 500 people answered the cryptic advert. After completing a psychological test, researchers whittled down the numbers to 15 who were judged to be well-rounded and from a cross-section of society. They included a former drug addict, a multi-millionaire businessman and a fireman. Dr Reicher was anxious to ensure none of the participants were obviously racist, aggressive or authoritarian, to eradicate any bias from the start. The volunteers were warned they might face exercise, tasks, hardship, hunger, solitude and anger. Only men were asked to apply because of the 24-hour surveillance by male scientists.

Ian Burnett, 22, admits he was terrified as he walked through the double doors leading to the specially constructed jail. "We seriously questioned Zimbardo's results. It quickly became evident to us that people actually have an ambivalence to power. The prisoners did not want to endure it and, contrary to Zimbardo's study, the guards did not want to inflict it."

Their experiment started last October when more than 500 people answered the cryptic advert. After

completing a psychological test, researchers whittled down the numbers to 15 who were judged to be well-rounded and from a cross-section of society. They included a former drug addict, a multi-millionaire businessman and a fireman. Dr Reicher was anxious to ensure none of the participants were obviously racist, aggressive or authoritarian, to eradicate any bias from the start. The volunteers were warned they might face exercise, tasks, hardship, hunger, solitude and anger. Only men were asked to apply because of the 24-hour surveillance by male scientists. Ian Burnett, 22, admits he was terrified as he walked through the double doors leading to the specially constructed jail.

I'd been driven to the studios in a blacked-out van and it was dark when I got there, so all I saw were these doors opening and a voice saying over a loudspeaker, 'Prisoner arriving'. Until then I'd no idea I was going to jail. There were bright lights and lots of jeering and whistling from the inmates. It was very upsetting.

"We weren't allowed to take anything with us. Even our toothbrushes were confiscated because we had to have the same regulation issue. We weren't allowed writing or reading materials. There wasn't even a TV.

"I knew it was an experiment but it honestly felt like a real jail. Everywhere we went doors would lock behind us. "We could take three things, so I took a pack of cards to keep me occupied, family photos to make me feel at home and a hot-water bottle because it was freezing outside. Little did I realise that I wouldn't be able to have any hot water to fill it.

"I was given an orange prison uniform, told to take a shower and my head was shaved. That was when I asked myself what the hell had I got into. But before I could say anything, I was having mug shots taken and being escorted to my cell.

"There were three bunks, but no windows, just mirrors on the walls. As soon as you went into the cell the metal bars of the door closed behind you. The beds looked uncomfortable, there was a scratchy, rough-looking blanket and a mattress no thicker than cardboard."

Long metal tables and benches were put outside the cells for prisoners to have their meals. Cameras were carefully concealed behind oneway mirrors and in ceilings to help the participants forget they were being constantly watched.

Burnett says: "To be honest, for the first few hours I thought the guards had been drafted in from a real prison. Some of them swaggered around, swinging the keys in their hands as if they owned the place.

Because no one had told us what this experiment was about, I felt so vulnerable and scared about what lay ahead."

Within hours he was joined by Frank, an anticapitalist and part-time tree surgeon, and computer expert Dave.

"The food was terrible," Burnett says. "Basic stuff such as mini pizzas, burgers and chips, but all really badly cooked. In that kind of environment, when boredom is one of the problems you are fighting against, meals become a highlight of the day, but not for us. And if you were put into solitary confinement for disobeying the guards it was even more basic - bread and water for the day.

"It was like going back to your childhood, being told what to do and when to do it. We had to get up at 6.30am, get washed and dressed, then have our breakfast. Anyone who smoked was allowed one cigarette at mealtimes and once in the afternoon.

"We prisoners quickly struck up a friendship and turned it into a them-and-us situation. We used to whistle to annoy the guards and when we were talking to them we'd look over their left ear, which always put them off slightly. They were stupid little things, but we felt it united us against them.''

But, after four days, just as Burnett was adjusting to the depressing routine, Reicher and Haslam threw a spanner in the works: they made him a guard. Almost immediately the other prisoners rebelled, furious that they would not enjoy the same privileges as Burnett - smoking when he wanted, endless hot coffee and decent meals. Angry confrontations ensued and the guards, unable to use physical force, felt impotent to enforce their rule. As the prisoners became more united, the guards disagreed constantly, weakening their position as authoritarian figures - and contradicting Zimbardo's findings.

"We could give out punishments if prisoners didn't do what we asked, such as issuing bread and water twice a day or putting them in the isolation cells for three hours at a time, even taking away cigarettes or the pool table, but the problem was enforcing them,'' says Burnett.

"If a prisoner didn't want to do it, you couldn't use aggression to get your point across. You needed their co-operation and they weren't going to give it, so it ended up being terribly stressful as a guard.

"As a result you began to feel angry and uptight and frustrated because you couldn't make someone do something if they didn't want to. I think that's where the project was unrealistic; in a real prison you'd have been able to enforce it. I felt that the prisoners could do whatever they liked." On the seventh day, the prisoners' strength began to grow. They taunted the guards and petty theft of items such as pencils, which were banned to inmates, and graffiti, became part of daily life. Many of the guards were teased and their confidence was slowly eroded.

Dr Reicher said this disproved Zimbardo's findings: "The guards tried to negotiate with the prisoners to get them to do what they wanted, but they weren't united in their efforts and, as a result, the inmates gained power. For 30 years, since the Stanford experiment, there has been a belief that power is synonymous with tyranny and abuse, but what this has shown is that there is little natural tendency towards tyranny, there is actually a much stronger drive towards rebellion."

But what of the accusation that this is merely a scientific experiment wrapped up in a glossy Big Brother-style TV package, complete with a soundproofed cubicle where both prisoners and guards can talk to the cameras - something to titillate rather than educate the viewer?

"This is not son of Zimbardo nor is it Big Brother,'' says Dr Reicher. "This was not dreamed up by TV people. We, the scientists, designed the experiment and then it was filmed. At no point did we think of this as reality TV, and we warned the volunteers that this wasn't an opportunity for fame or fortune." In fact, none of the volunteers were paid for taking part.

Having watched the film, Burnett is more sceptical: "The TV show concentrates on the Big Brother aspect - the funny and sad moments - rather than the science. I think a lot of the more serious side has been cut out because it would make boring TV.

"There was a lot of stress and people were pushed to the edge in some cases, but I don't think viewers will get the whole picture, which is a shame. It was an interesting project and I know it changed my views. I now realise that you have to be aggressive if you want to get something done when you're not getting total cooperation. That was never in my character but this experiment has truly changed my personality."

? The Experiment starts on Tuesday 14 May on BBC2 at 9pm.