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It is one of the most notorious social experiments ever conducted, inspiring numerous films, documentaries and psychological studies. In August of 1971, Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo recruited 24 male
college students to participate in a study — funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research — about antisocial behavior and the effects of imprisonment. Selected students passed a psych screening and didn’t have criminal records or medical conditions. The psychology department was transformed into a mock prison replete with small cells, a corridor doubling as a prison yard and a closet for “solitary confinement, and for two weeks, at a rate of $15 a day ($124.79 in 2026), participants would be dropped into a simulated prison environment and assigned randomly to the role of prison guard or prisoner. They were referred to only by the number on their prison uniform as a form of dehumanization, and guards were encouraged to maintain order by any means necessary.
By Day 2 of the study, the inmates had staged a rebellion against the guards, using their beds to barricade themselves inside their cells; the guards responded by spraying the prisoners with fire extinguishers, forcing them to strip and sleep on the cold concrete floor. As the situation worsened, with guards exhibiting increasingly cruel forms of punishment and several prisoners suffering mental breakdowns, the Stanford prison experiment was ended on the sixth day. It’s now considered a colossal ethical failure due to its lack of safeguards for participants, neglecting to properly inform partakers of the parameters, poor oversight and the fact that the man conducting the experiment, Dr. Zimbardo, also served as the “prison” superintendent.
So, now would be the perfect time for a redo, right? Right?!
“The New Stanford Prison Experiment”, debuting Oct. 21 on Netflix, is meant to serve as a cultural corrective of sorts — an attempt to see if the Stanford prison experiment could actually yield valuable insights into the human condition if done correctly. It seeks to answer the question, “Does power corrupt?” And raises additional ones about conformity, dominance/submission, voyeurism and the bounds of reality television.
Executive produced by Jane Lipsitz and Dan Cutforth (“Top Chef,” “Project Runway”) via their production company Alfred Street Industries, “The New Stanford Prison Experiment” takes thirty participants from diverse backgrounds, transports them to a decommissioned section of a real working prison — the Adult Detention Center in Cherokee County, Georgia — and simulates a prison environment over two weeks, assigning eight as guards (splitting them up between separate day shift and night shift teams) and 22 as prisoners.
“We were definitely nervous to take on something that has already failed — that is a nerve-wracking place to be — but we felt the question it was asking was very relevant and important today,” Lipsitz tells Variety. “Still, there were moments where we thought it would end on the same day that the original experiment did.” (More on that later.)
Whereas the original study was comprised of all white male college students (and one Asian American) from similar economic backgrounds, this new iteration features folks of all races and walks of life, including three women. Furthermore, the crew took pains to make sure the inmates or guards weren’t aware of the production, so as not to influence their decision-making, by having no crew members in the pod and everything shot on Robocam.
The show implemented a number of safeguards to ensure that things never went haywire, including “extensive background checks and psychological testing” for all participants, informed consent, medics and psychologists on call 24/7, a safe word (“pineapple”) if they ever felt they needed to leave or wanted to talk to a therapist and/or producer and a series of confessional interviews throughout the experiment. “The production paid for off-duty guards to be on hand in case anything got out of hand, so there were trained professionals on the spot who could handle anything that went awry,” explains Cutforth, including Major Boughner, who served as commander of both the real side of the correctional facility and the experimental pod.
There was also a panel of experts observing the inmates and guards at all times, and advising production on the ethics of the undertaking: Alison Wood Brooks, a behavioral scientist who teaches a course called “How to talk gooder in business and life” at Harvard Business School; Michael Cantrell, a former federal corrections officer; and Trymaine Lee, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. And yes, participants in the experiment/reality show were paid, though Lipsitz and Cutforth were unable to disclose just how much.
“We did not want to pay them enough that they were doing this for the money because then it defeats the purpose of the experiment,” offers Lipsitz. “We were surprised by how many people wanted to do it. There’s no big prize at the end and you’re not meeting the love of your life. I think people wanted to understand what they were capable of and were interested in the concept of power, and what kinds of decisions they would make under these circumstances.”
“People wanted to challenge their own integrity and morality, and some people just wanted to see if they could stay in there for 14 days and eat prison food,” adds Cutforth.
“The New Stanford Prison Experiment” establishes its uneasy tone early on. Upon entering the prison, the 22 inmates hear loud yelling and heckling through the walls, since there are real prisoners on the other side of them. “That was real,” maintains Lipsitz. “The moment when they were in there and the real inmates started to scream, it really did have a big effect on the people as they came in, and I think it was a contributing factor to some people dropping out,” says Cutforth. “It made them aware that this is not a joke.”
According to Lipsitz and Cutforth, six people ended up dropping out of the show after it became too intense for them, though not all of these people made the final cut. And unlike the original experiment, the Netflix series allowed those with criminal pasts to participate, such as “Scary” Larry Foy who, by his estimation, had spent over 300 days in jail and tells his cellmate that he’d tried to kill his brother. “Scary” Larry seems to not take well to being back behind bars from the get-go, but the show’s producers insist that everything remained safe. “There were definitely participants who had been to jail,” admits Lipsitz. “But we did very extensive background checks and psychological testing, and Larry had done a lot of recovery work and works as an advocate now for reform. He had changed his life pattern. It was very important to us to not put people into the population who posed a threat.”
Without giving too much away, the experiment takes a dark turn on day six — the same day the original experiment was terminated — as one team of guards quells a potential uprising by imposing a form of punishment seen as extreme by even the other guard shift. Things devolve from there, as the show implements several “interventions,” from asserting the hierarchy to a staggering role-reversal, that drastically alters the dynamic amongst the group. But Lipsitz and Cutforth are adamant that things never got too out of hand. “I would say that it was much more emotionally intense than physically intense,” she states. “There were moments of real concern, but the actual prison guards never had to go in and intercede.”
Overall, Lipsitz and Cutforth say they’re happy with the way “The New Stanford Prison Experiment” concludes and what the show reveals about its participants.
“This could have gone a million ways, but I think what it proved is that the question of, ‘Does power corrupt?’ wasn’t actually the right question to be asking,” Lipsitz says. “There were a lot of questions that this answered, but everyone is going to have their own POVs based on their own experiences and we want to leave it up to the viewers to decide.”
Cutforth concurs: “It’s going to cause conversations and people are going to have very strong feelings.”
