The treatment of military prisoners

[extract] Psychologist Dr Patrick Tissington - a former British Army officer - says that the military can use loyalty to a group to encourage decent, rather than brutal behaviour.

He says that "without supervision, the Stanford guards quickly turned into nasty pieces of work", but where members feel a great loyalty to a group and a concern for the standing of that organisation they will want to behave impeccably.Dr Tissington says that soldiers will frame their own behaviour so as not to bring shame on their comrades, their predecessors, nor the recruits to come. The British regimental system has long been praised for binding soldiers very tightly to small units with long histories and traditions. 

For the full article see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3683115.stm