Recently, I saw a documentary program about a Chicago police detective and commander, Jon Burge, who oversaw the torture of more than 200 criminal suspects, most of whom were African-Americans, for almost 20 years! After his conviction, the state government realized that he had put at least 12 people on death row for crimes they had not committed. His tactics included burning with radiators and cigarettes, as well as electrocution. Amazingly, during that long period of time staffs at City Hall were apparently aware of his conduct, but nobody was willing to report him.
This story reminded me of the experiments that a psychologist at Yale University, Stanley Milgram, conducted in 1963: “Obedience to authority.” His experiment set up a situation where an authority figure instructed subjects to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. The result revealed that 65% of them were prepared to obey even if causing apparent harm and distress to another person hidden from their view. (In fact nobody was physically harmed, although some of the subjects became very distressed).What an amazing result!
In 1974, Milgram summed up his experiment, by noting: “… how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist.” Apparently, the result tells us that such behaviour is highly likely despite our personal moral imperatives against hurting others. This really intrigues me to think about human beings and human behaviour. Shall we trust ourselves and others when we can escape being caught? I recall that many years ago a friend of mine said he did not even trust himself, let alone trust others. At that time, I was so naïve to disbelieve what he had said. Now, I think I understand what he really meant. I think we really need to focus on our integrity, be very aware of what we are doing at all times and truly be honest to ourselves. This can be very challenging, but it is achievable.
References:
Gane-McCalla, C. (January 25, 2016). The Top 5 Most Corrupt US Police Officers of All-Time. Newsone. Retrieved from: http://newsone.com/1551885/top-5-corrupt-police-officers/
Wikipedia, (January 25, 2016). Milgram Experiment. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
McLeod, S. (January 25, 2016) The Milgram Experiment. Retrieved from: