Want to participate? Volunteers will become 'prisoners' in an experiment that will test a new prison

April 4, 2022   

Participating in a strange, not to say bizarre, experiment: Over 600 people have volunteered to become prisoners in a new prison that is about to open in Zurich, Switzerland's largest city. Cleaning for Passover: What do you know about the rules for maintaining the home gas system? Are you over the age of 60? This is the teaching for you from Rabbi Kanievsky, zt”l The innovative prison, located near the central train station and capable of housing up to 124 prisoners, will be accepting "probationary residents." This was announced on the Walla website. What does this actually mean? These people will have limited access to the outside world, will be allowed to take only short walks in the yard, and will eat the prison's food during the period. But that's not all: the probationary residents will also have to undergo physical examinations, just as the prisoners will - without any concessions. The New York Post reported that the volunteers will not be able to bring in mobile phones or other electronic devices with them, and each participant will need to undergo security clearance and checks similar to those at the airport. If it gets too difficult for them, each volunteer will also receive a "safe word" that they can say to the staff to get them out of there immediately if they regret it or start to break down because of the conditions. Surprisingly, many more people volunteered for this project than the prison can accommodate. Mark Eyreman, one of the prison administrators, warned the volunteers not to expect to arrive at a "vacation village." He added that this experiment was intended to verify the proper functioning of the prison on a daily basis. The idea of ​​running a pilot for the prison was praised by both the prison staff and the volunteers, who would feel once (at least) in their lives what it was like to live in prison conditions. It should be noted that a radical experiment with volunteer prisoners was previously conducted in a prison by a psychologist named Zimbardo, and it was stopped in the middle, after the prisoners and the imaginary guards "took over their duties" and the event got out of control and became a disaster.