Wanna know why people are comfortable with torture?

[Cain]

Because it's so fucking routine.

Joe Casey spent five weeks filming undercover in a private care hospital on the outskirts of Bristol after getting a job as a support worker. He was shocked by what he witnessed.

My experience at Winterbourne View will stay with me for a very long time.

The hitting, slapping, bullying, dousing with water, cruel and often pointless use of physical restraint on people - many with a child-like understanding of the world - all happened in front of my eyes.

On a near-daily basis, I watched as some of the very people entrusted with the care of society's most vulnerable targeted patients - often, it seemed, for their own amusement. They are scenes of torment that are not easily forgotten.

The targets had no way of defending themselves or speaking out. Anyone who questioned the abuse met a wall of silence.

They spent most of their days locked on the top floor of a three-story non-descript building in a business park on the outskirts of town.

'Suffocate on your fat'

The world of care was unfamiliar to me and going undercover as a support worker in a private hospital was a giant leap out of my comfort zone.

I was going in to try and collect evidence of ill treatment and abuse of people that we had been told about by Terry Bryan, a nurse with 35 years experience who had turned to Panorama after his official complaints about what he had witnessed at Winterbourne View went unheeded.

I would be working 12-hour days on weekly wage of just under £306.

After a few days, I started to see why Terry was worried enough to go to both management and government regulator - the Care Quality Commission.

On one of my early shifts, I saw a support worker poking a patient repeatedly in the eyes as if it were a game. A short time later, another worker pulled the same person across the floor telling her to "suffocate on your own fat".

Another patient, Simon, was one of the first to cross my path. He is 36 but has the mental age of a four-year-old.

No one knows why, a cause has not been discovered.

He is very friendly and chatty, always wanting to give you a bear hug that you struggle to get out from. It could feel at times like he was getting out of hand and he would need to be told to calm down.

At Winterbourne View, Simon had become a plaything for some staff and a target for aggressive bullying and frequent abuse. I saw him being slapped, held down for no reason and threatened with having his head put down the toilet.

[...]

The person who I had seen poked in the eye was called Simone, who suffers a genetic disorder.

'Horrific abuse'

She is 18 and had recently been taken into care after she began having violent outbursts. Like Simon, she was a popular target for bullying and abuse by staff.

She too can be a handful, but she has a sweet nature and an infectious laugh.

Simone was the recipient of the worst of the abuse that I witnessed, including being doused in water while fully clothed and later being taken outside on a cold March day where she lay shivering on the ground.

It was a day that ended with the water from the vase of flowers that her parents had given her on a visit being poured over her head as she screamed on her bedroom floor.

She was then taken into the bathroom for a second shower fully clothed and had mouthwash poured over her.

It left me with my most haunting memory from my time undercover. At the end of that horrific day of abuse, I was the only one in the group of support workers who was not taking part.

I was watching on the sidelines, resisting putting a stop to this and blowing my cover. Simone was staring at me as she lay on the floor, staring at the only person not abusing her.

I could not save Simone on that day. I had to resist my instinct to step in. I was there to gather the evidence that could help save others from a similar fate - and Simone herself from future abuse.

The way we treat people like Simone and Simon is a measure of our common humanity. By that measure we have failed.

This probably takes place in secure facilities, nursing homes and the like all over the western world.  Every.  Single.  Day.  It's routine, mundane and utterly barbaric. 

[Freeky]

Yes. 

My grandma once lived in a place that constantly got poor reviews from whoever it is that regulates these things here, though I never heard of anything this bad.  My parents pulled her out, and sent her to my Kansas family, and she's in a home there. 

I hear she's doing a lot better than she was here.

[Salty]

How exactly do we live with that kind of barbarism?

If you ask anyone on the street in the civilized world about these things they'd be horrified at the thought. if I were talk about this specific article with people at work they'd look aghast and shocked and then go on. Just like we all do.

What is it that keeps us from dealing with the things we collectively agree are horrible? Maybe I'm just not social enough to realize most assholes alsogyhatghtblpdg.

[Cain]

Diffusion of responsibility. 

I could enter a crowded place with a baby and a cleaver, make a great show of bringing the blade up and down on the neck and then chop the head off, and the chances of people intervening are so low precisely due to the number of people there.  "Why doesn't someone do something?"  "You first" is the cynical and all too accurate reply.  Oh sure, they might do something once the baby is actually dead, make a show of moving after the killing blow was already struck....but until that moment, it is Somebody Else's Problem.

[Juana]

People are disgusting. That's vile and I hope it got taken care (though I perhaps doubt it).

[Jenne]

It is so terribly sad and pathetic how easy it is to abuse the weak in vulnerable in society.  The mentally ill, foster kids, the elderly--all of them get ritual abuse on a regular basis.  It's one of those social evils in Westernized society that we turn a blind eye and deaf ear to.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Been wondering if there's an anthropological explanation. Like some species, particularly pack-oriented ones, have a habit of stomping on the weak and vulnerable because they're fucking animals and weak and vulnerable pack members are a liability when you're a fucking animal and other fucking animals want to fight you for food at best or kill you at worst.

People keep telling me we humans are better than animals, y'know with that slouchy expression of dumb fucking conviction that often serves as an accompaniment to spouting shit that's been programmed into you from birth. I figure we are fucking animals so the most we can hope for is "best of" rather than "better than". Might sound semantic but to me it's an important distinction especially considering I'm not even sure if we're all that.

I never caught the show but it's fairly clear that the whole thing is working systemically. Despite the fact that the Daily Mail and their readership would like to blame "TEH EVIL INCARNATE" and nail someones head to a bloody spike, the truth is probably more along the lines of someone new starting and being sat down and given "the talk". Welcome to the real world and sometimes you gotta show these fucking animals who's boss. Fucker telling you that probably got told the same thing a long time ago.

That's the scary bit. A nice evil madman would be better all round. And they nail his head to a spike and we all live happily ever after but the truth is it's going on all over the place. Normal people. The kind of you-and-I, Joe Bloggs kinda people who once got told to herd a bunch of starving people into a room and pour Zyklon's finest in the chimney. For every hundred of us (and I hope I'm in this category) who would go batshit if they were expected to join in with this kind of shit, there is a percentage of people who would. I dunno if it's an ickle decimal number or 99.9 but I am pretty sure it aint one in a million or any shit like that.

[Adios]

Been wondering if there's an anthropological explanation. Like some species, particularly pack-oriented ones, have a habit of stomping on the weak and vulnerable because they're fucking animals and weak and vulnerable pack members are a liability when you're a fucking animal and other fucking animals want to fight you for food at best or kill you at worst.

People keep telling me we humans are better than animals, y'know with that slouchy expression of dumb fucking conviction that often serves as an accompaniment to spouting shit that's been programmed into you from birth. I figure we are fucking animals so the most we can hope for is "best of" rather than "better than". Might sound semantic but to me it's an important distinction especially considering I'm not even sure if we're all that.

I never caught the show but it's fairly clear that the whole thing is working systemically. Despite the fact that the Daily Mail and their readership would like to blame "TEH EVIL INCARNATE" and nail someones head to a bloody spike, the truth is probably more along the lines of someone new starting and being sat down and given "the talk". Welcome to the real world and sometimes you gotta show these fucking animals who's boss. Fucker telling you that probably got told the same thing a long time ago.

That's the scary bit. A nice evil madman would be better all round. And they nail his head to a spike and we all live happily ever after but the truth is it's going on all over the place. Normal people. The kind of you-and-I, Joe Bloggs kinda people who once got told to herd a bunch of starving people into a room and pour Zyklon's finest in the chimney. For every hundred of us (and I hope I'm in this category) who would go batshit if they were expected to join in with this kind of shit, there is a percentage of people who would. I dunno if it's an ickle decimal number or 99.9 but I am pretty sure it aint one in a million or any shit like that.

This certainly has the feel of truth in it.

[Reginald Ret]

It's closer to for every hundred of good guys there are 400 of those other guys.
They are the normal ones.
This is one of the reasons why the word/concept 'normal' pisses me off.

[Nadezhda]

Been wondering if there's an anthropological explanation. [chawp!]

It's not really an anthropological problem.  Primatologists could hypothesize something about group situations and apes, but they can do that with anything.  Anthropology could discuss different cultures and the similarities between cultures that have a strong "Someone else's problem" vibe, but probably wouldn't step in and say "I'M A BIGSHOT WESTERN ANTHROPOLOGIST AND ALL OUR PROBLEMS ARE CAUSED BY THIS:"  sociology and psychology can do and then prove themselves wrong later or whatever.

TL;DR or whatever
We are neurocentric mammals who need larger brains in order to coherently navigate our complex social groups, ie maintaining order without killing all the other reproductive competitors.  Whether the "Someone else's problem" is related to our evolutionary urge to keep the group united (accept baby-killers into your tribe, and you're less likely to be eaten by hyenas!) or whether it's a cultural thing, I'm not sure.  I could probably find an anthropological paper on it, but I don't waaaannnnnt tooooooo

Okay fine, there probably is a good anthropological answer.

GUH UNCOHERENT POST IS LESS COHERENT THAN USUAL

[Slyph]

It's closer to for every hundred of good guys there are 400 of those other guys.
They are the normal ones.

I work in this field and I've never seen this kind of shit go on. We wouldn't stand for it. Anything like that and you get shitcanned so fast your head'd spin, and then you get charged. I think, I mean I hope, this is exceptional.

[Cramulus]

Ugh, simply disgusting.

Mental patients have historically been treated as badly as criminals. Many of the "cures" practiced in asylums throughout history have been indistinguishable from torture.

Our corrections system has gradually gotten less barbaric over the last two centuries. It's still pretty barbaric IMO, but things are very different than they used to be.

Mental hospitals too - they've made progress since they started reporting on this stuff in the 50s, but they're still just awful.

the reason we're cool with stuff like this is because we don't see it - it happens behind closed doors to people that don't have a voice. Reporting like this actually helps!

[P3nT4gR4m]

It's closer to for every hundred of good guys there are 400 of those other guys.
They are the normal ones.

I work in this field and I've never seen this kind of shit go on. We wouldn't stand for it. Anything like that and you get shitcanned so fast your head'd spin, and then you get charged. I think, I mean I hope, this is exceptional.

Which country are you in? Apparently in the UK this kind of shit is rife but I'm basing that on the (admittedly predominantly fictional) UK press and media

[Cain]

The problem is, even when these kind of facilities are in the minority, there are so many of them.  And in the UK, the vast majority of regulations for many of these only came in when Labour was in power - in the last decade.  So, you have a ton of people who were trained and learned their craft at a time when roughly manhandling people, not assuming mental capacity, a certain level of neglect etc were acceptable, or even routine.

Admittedly, this is worse than many cases I've heard of.  But even those lesser cases are still pretty horrible, in that people have made the active decision not to make the effort, not execute their duty of care in a responsible manner etc  And I really believe this is far more widespread than is generally acknowledged.

[Slyph]

It's closer to for every hundred of good guys there are 400 of those other guys.
They are the normal ones.

I work in this field and I've never seen this kind of shit go on. We wouldn't stand for it. Anything like that and you get shitcanned so fast your head'd spin, and then you get charged. I think, I mean I hope, this is exceptional.

Which country are you in? Apparently in the UK this kind of shit is rife but I'm basing that on the (admittedly predominantly fictional) UK press and media

UK.