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Societal control: The real Stanford Prison Experiment 

September 5, 2025

The article discusses how prison systems, particularly the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), serve as testing grounds for societal control tactics. It argues that control methods used against the public were first perfected in prison settings, including chemical agents, surveillance, and riot control techniques. The author details how prison authorities operate with minimal accountability while restricting prisoner rights, specifically highlighting a 2023 policy that banned physical mail in favor of digital scanning, allegedly to prevent drug smuggling.

Who is affected

  • Prisoners in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice system
  • Prisoners' families and friends who can no longer send physical mail, pictures, or birthday cards
  • Broader society that eventually experiences similar control tactics that were first tested in prisons
  • Mail-room employees involved in denying prisoners' mail

What action is being taken

  • TDCJ is enforcing a statewide mail ban implemented on July 17, 2023
  • Securus Technologies is operating a digital mail processing center in Dallas where physical mail is sent to be scanned and uploaded to prisoners' tablets
  • Mail-room employees are denying prisoners' mail under claims of suspicious substances
  • Prison authorities are destroying denied mail without allowing prisoners to appeal, request testing, or return it to senders

Why it matters

  • The article positions prisons as "guinea pigs" for establishing control tactics that later extend to broader society
  • The judicial system has set high thresholds for what constitutes a constitutional violation, giving prison authorities significant control
  • These practices demonstrate how state power can be abused in what the author terms a "police state"
  • The restrictions on mail represent a pattern of limiting prisoner rights under manufactured security concerns

What's next

  • No explicit next steps stated in the article

Read full article from source: San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper

Societal control: The real Stanford Prison Experiment