Systemic prisoner abuse is dismissed as a few bad apples to protect national self-image.

Evidence

In response to the Boesky case, some young traders shifted the blame to isolated “bad apples.” “It’s like knowing someone with cancer. You feel it for awhile. But say to yourself, ‘Hey, it’s not me,’ and you go on” (Martz, Powell, McCormick, Thomas, & Starr, 1986). Given the excesses on Wall Street, some of the elders in the business viewed the blurring of the line between right and wrong as pervasive. As one of the elders put it, “The ‘bad apples’ speeches are crap.” — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1431 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Officials denied awareness of what was going on, absolving the upper echelon of any responsibility. Because administration officials blamed the problem on a few “bad apples,” only guards did prison time. Many of the very officials who were the architects and enablers of the costly Iraq war and the resulting abusive practices received high national honors and career advancement. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2410 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Attributing systemic abuse to a few bad apples protects architects from accountability — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2410; Euphemistic reframing of abuse as atypical can enable institutional inaction. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 498; Perpetrators deflect systemic wrongdoing onto isolated bad apples — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1431

Broader Connections

• Perpetrators deflect systemic wrongdoing onto isolated bad apples #corroborates (0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1431
• Attributing systemic abuse to a few bad apples protects architects from accountability #expands (0.92) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2410