COMMUNITY DIVIDED

In the summer of 1971, psychologist Phillip Zimbardo conducted what is now known as the Stanford Prison Experiment. It was to be a two-week-long experiment, to test the psychological effects on individual behaviour based on perceived authority. Volunteers for the experiment were put in one of two categories: guards, and prisoners.

Those placed in the roles of guards quickly began to abuse their roles, resorting to arbitrary punishments, escalating to physical and emotional abuse as their power was left unquestioned and unchecked. Finally, at the insistence of Zimbardo’s wife, the experiment was called off after only six days.

In the spring of 2019, the Tasmanian government began the Westbury Prison experiment. By announcing a maximum-security prison at the Valley Central industrial site, and then later on a crown land site purchased for conservation. Minister Elise Archer set the wheels in motion to create two distinct categories: those in favour of the prison, and those opposed. The many who were opposed to the prison quickly learned their role – to be labelled NIMBYs, anti-everything, to be harassed, victimised, ridiculed and vilified by the pro-prison advocates. The much smaller pro-prison group, spurred on in part by seeing their abusive actions were left unchecked, have escalated to emotional violence, vandalising property and other verbal abuse at anyone against the proposed prison.

This experiment has gone on now for two years, and the net result is a community irrevocably divided. In all this, where is our metaphorical “Zimbardo’s wife”? The Meander Valley Council, or federal minister Sussan Ley could step in and stop this quickly. The state government is clearly unwilling to stop this experiment, even though it has drastically reduced spending for the prison project in the budget for the next three years, so council or Minister Ley need to step up. If they don’t, they will be remembered for being complicit in a project that forever divided a community.

Martin Hamilton Westbury