The Abu Ghraib Effect on Orange is the New Black

posted on: Jul 7, 2016

By: Tamara Wong Azaiez/ Contributing Writer

Orange is the New Black is one of the hottest show for millennials, drawing in millions of viewers to Netflix every season. The show follows the prison sentence of Piper Chapman and other inmates who each have interesting pasts. Racial power structures, prison politics, and the treatment of inmates makes for a thrilling, yet comical, drama that is telling of real-life social justice issues.

In the most recent season of Orange is the New Black, the prison’s warden hires Iraq War veterans as guards after a staged walk-out by the previous guards who fought for fairer benefits and wages.

The new guards are untrained, inhumane, and view the inmates as nothing more than animals. Specifically, Piscatella, the “Captain” of the guards, chooses to allow his team to employ cruel tactics to discipline inmates. Due to a spotting of drugs in the prison, the inmates are subject to random, invasive body checks, where the male guards often grope the women unnecessarily. One inmate, Blanca, decides not to shower in order to avoid the body checks and is sentenced to standing on a table in the cafeteria until she “learns her lesson.” She is left there for two days with no food, water or bathroom breaks. Fellow inmates are outraged by this. After trying to feed Blanca during her sentence, Piper is forced to stand on the table with her for a day. One of the other guards comments on this method of discipline and says it is “a little Abu Ghraib-y.”

Blanca is forced to stand on a table for nearly 3 days

Abu Ghraib was a torture prison used to detain suspected terrorists in Iraq during the Iraq war. It was notorious for the inhumane punishment led by American soldiers assigned there, as well as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who authorized some of the tactics.

The abuses included, rape, aggressive touching, body shaming, sodomy, and murder. There were countless horrors inside the prison. Prisoners were forced into animal status as the guards pets, carted around with a leash, used as seats for the guards, smeared in faeces, and told to perform sexual acts onto the guards. Finally, the most well-documented form of torture was forcing a prisoner to stand on a block until his knees gave in or until he died, similar to the punishment given to Blanca.

Abu Ghraib prisoner

According to the Prisoner’s Experiment, where psychology students were separated into guards and prisoners, when authority is given in any social situation, the power is abused. In the experiment, the student “guards” end up torturing the student “prisoners” just because they are of higher status. This psychological indicator exemplifies the dangers of putting veterans trained in extraction techniques in positions of authority when they return to their civilian lives.

The show mimics the “Abu Ghraib” techniques in other ways, as well. In the duration of the season, the warden, Caputo, is in and out of the prison, unable to tend to any of the affairs, forcing him to give more and more control to the guards. A new guard is introduced, Humphrey, who abuses his power in the most sociopathic way. In one instance, he overhears two of the inmates playing a game of “would you rather,” asking: Would you rather eat a mouse fetus or ten dead flies? One of the prisoners, Maritza, chooses the mouse fetus, insisting it would be like a jellybean.

Later on in the episode when Humphrey is alone with Maritza, he forces her to actually choose between eating a mouse fetus or ten dead flies. Humphrey puts a gun to her head until she finally chooses the mouse fetus. This performance was not a punishment, nor an extraction technique, but a tool to assert dominance over another person simply for the thrill. At Abu Ghraib, prisoners were often forced to choose between doing two horrible acts because the soldiers were bored.

Humphrey forces Maritza to choose between eating a mouse fetus and ten dead flies

Humphrey also exemplified Abu Ghraib techniques when he forces two inmates into a cage fight, purely for his own entertainment, leading to the hospitalization of one of the inmates. Although the prisoners begged to not fight, Humphrey again put them in a life or death situation to get what he wanted.

The prison in Orange is the New Black dealt with overcrowding issues all season, as well, which is an extremely common problem within prisons today. At the start of the show, the prison introduces around one hundred new inmates, and they are all forced to double up in tiny bunks. Although not as severe as Abu Ghraib, the show mirrors the tiny spaces and the frustration of living in cramped quarters.

The show also introduces a cooking celebrity,  Judy King, to the prison (the character is based off of Martha Stewart who received special treatment while in prison). Judy King develops a sexual relationship with a guard and receives special treatment, much like inmates at Abu Ghraib who were forced to become sex slaves for the soldiers.

Soldier at Abu Ghraib forces a prisoner to wear a leash and get dragged around

The issue, then becomes if these are the supervisors then who are the ones the inmates can trust? Beyond being committed felons, they are still people who at least deserve their basic human rights respected. Chapman attempts to report the Blanca situation, only to be told that her opinion means nothing to the guard because she is an inmate.

The final straw in the series comes when the inmates riot from the death of their dear friend, and fellow inmate, Washington, who receives no justice after being murdered by a guard. Humphrey attempts to stop the riots by pulling out a gun he brought from home, which is knocked out of his hand and ends up in the possession of a troubled inmate, Daya, who is being encouraged to shoot him. Viewers don’t know what Daya decided, but the series begs the question: what can happen when power is placed in the wrong hands in real life?

When anyone is given a position of authority, especially coming from a background where inhumane tactics were approved by the highest levels of power, the chances of destructive behavior are much higher. While many of the soldiers who participated in the inhumane treatment of Iraqis in Abu Ghraib were given short sentences in federal prison, there are still many veterans who have skills that harm American society if given the opportunity.

That is not to say all Americans should be cautious of all veterans, or that they are all capable of hurting civilians. But, there is a lesson here in the way the justice system, and the mistreatment of other humans put in lower positions like in Orange is the New Black, are in need of investigation and reform.