The Ombudsmans61percent campaign at www.blogspot.com
To the Business Secretary:
For Clarity - Attempt 449.
449) Philip Zimbado: The Stanford Prison Experiment.
Dear Mr Javid,
Have you ever stopped to wonder what it takes to turn an average, decent, fun-loving Louise or Michael from Dr Jekyll into Mr Hyde? Or how that lovely person at the queue in Lidl's who thought that the rain must surely stop one day, can then turn up at the Decision Support Tool Assessment for NHS Continuing Healthcare Funding for your parent and proceed to tell you a pack of lies? Or, when it comes to Ombudsman Services, can completely ignore your case's well documented photographic evidence in favour of the scribblings of their fee-paying RICS surveyor, when handling you their unforgiveable and unforgettable illogical Final Decision?
The 1973 Stanford Prison Experiment might be as good a place as any to start.
The first time I came across it back in the seventies I thought, "that can't be true...that's insane... they've made it all up." Now, after being the recipient of Ombudsman Services shocking brand of justice and being stonewalled by Plymouth City Council Adult Social Services, it's Finance Department, Plymouth Community Care, Wellbeing Ltd., and Devon NEW CCG, it's all become crystal clear - Stanford pointed to the future.
Philip Zimbado wanted to know: was the brutality reported among prison guards in American prisons down to the inherent sadism of the guards - ie it was, "dispositional" or had it more to do with the prison environment - ie was it, "situational?"
Both the, "guards" and the, "prisoners" were male student volunteers, most were white, middle class and (at the start) deemed to be psychologically stable and healthy. They were paid 15 dollars a day. The programme was scheduled to last a fortnight. It was terminated on the sixth day.
The results were dramatic and disturbing. Within a very short time some guards began to harass prisoners. They behaved in a brutal and sadistic manner, apparently enjoying it.
The prisoners were taunted, insulted and given pointless and boring tasks to accomplish. They were generally dehumanised. As the guards' contempt for prisoners grew the prisoners became more submissive. The guards appeared to have lost their sense of identity and personal responsibility.
One guard said, "I was surprised at myself. I made them call each other names and clean the toliets out with their bare hands."
Another guard said, "Acting authoritatively can be fun. Power can be a great pleasure."
Christina Maslach, a Stanford Ph.D brought in to conduct interviews with the guards and prisoners, strongly objected when she saw the prisoners abused by the guards. Filled with outrage she said, "It's terrible what you are doing to these boys." Out of 50 or more outsiders who had been to the, "prison" she was the only one who questioned its morality.
The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign has enormous respect for people like Christina Maslach (Ph.D).
Not all the guards were sadistic but experimenters reported that approximately one-third exhibited genuine sadistic tendencies. Clearly, the experiment dramatically demonstrated just how quickly, "disorientation," "depersonalisation" and "deindividualisation" took hold, with the "good" guards unable to prevent the "sadistic" guards from being sadistic.
The pleasure of power combined with a disposition towards sadism seems a toxic combination - from student prison guards through NHS assessors and their collaborating social work colleagues to investigating officers impersonating ombudsman.
Not all the social workers we came into contact with were happy with what they were expected to do which suggested the, "situational" nature of their job. They weren't nasty people who took pleasure from being nasty.
Two of the three were clearly very unhappy - with one seeking to transfer to another area of social work. Of course the senior managers who orchestrated the operation ensured that they - the managers - remained shadowy figures and off the radar, that questions never reached them. It took a Freedom of Information Act request to discover who these shadowy people are. So much for local government democracy. Alarmingly, they are - and are allowed to be - non transparent and unaccountable in their dealings with local council taxpayers. It has very effectively been rigged that way. Otherwise it would be radically different.
They would be servants of the public. Not quasi jailors or prison mangers .
As for Ombudsman Services - we been told by a former inmate that things are far worse than we could ever imagine. The guards of, "civil justice" obediently cut and paste the Ombudsman's signature onto reports they have written and send them out to unsuspecting complainants. They even have parties to celebrate just how clever they've been in their maladministration of civil justice and how creatively they've cleared backlogs of complaints. Apparently.
There was a Christina Maslach-like figure at the company: the Independent Assessor. But unfortunately for the complainant, after her, "First and Last Report" she appears to have left rather than be further tainted by what she had witnessed in her brief time at the organisation.
The Ombudsmans61percent Campaign has a lot of time for the former Independent Assessor. It takes courage to be fair and independent.
That leaves the Rev. Lewis Shand Smith, CEO and Chief Ombudsman, who when describing complainants - each with their own complaint and story to tell - as a, "Stock of Work" succinctly encapsulated the, "dehumanising," "disorientating," "depersonalising" and "deindividualisating" nature of his organisations' particular brand of, "civil justice."
Q. Mr Javid, do you still assure taxpayers that when they take their complaints to this government approved and monitored redress scheme, that each and every complaint will be investigated, "fairly" and "independently?"
Q. Mr Javid, isn't it criminal how the relatives of the sick, the elderly and the dying have to battle with local councils and NHS CCGs to reclaim what once rightly belonged to their loved ones?
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