Dissertation Defenses

Doctoral Dissertation Announcement

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Candidate: Janine A. Bower

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Sociology

Title: Thereby Become a Monster: Organizational Crime and the Case of Abu Ghraib

Committee:
Dr. Gerald E. Markle, Chair
Dr. Paula S. Brush
Dr. Susan M. Carlson
Dr. Robert C. Ulin


Date: Thursday, February 1, 2007 3:45 p.m.- 5:45p.m.
3208 Sangren Hall

Abstract:
Following the 2004 public disclosure of prisoner abuse and the use of torture at the Abu Ghraib detention and interrogation facility in Iraq, public questions focused on why seemingly ordinary men and women engaged in prisoner abuse and torture at the facility. Individual-level explanations such as deficient moral character or personal psychological defect (the ‘bad apple’ explanation) fail to account for the prevalence of abuse and systematic use of torture. Theorists on organizational crime and deviance suggest that organizational crime and misconduct includes aspects of the 1) environment, 2) organizational characteristics (such as tasks, structure, and processes), and 3) cognition, and is systematically produced by the combination of these three. To examine the organizational culture, structure and processes, and their intersection with individual biographies and contextual forces at Abu Ghraib, an ethnographic content analysis of documents (e.g. evaluative reports, memorandum, legal opinions, and investigation reports) was performed. Findings indicate that organizational features contributed to the prevalence and systematic use of torture by those working at the prison.