My Letter To The Editor About ICE --How A Uniform Can Change The Man

Erika Raskin

Sep 26, 2025

this (terrifying) actual poster photo was not included in the letter.

My letter to the editor -- Richmond Times Dispatch

What I’d like to say to those consider joining U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement:

The footage of masked authorities descending on other people reminds me of the Stanford prison experiment (which has freaked me out for half a century). Undertaken only a generation or so past the horrors of German war crimes, academic researchers wanted to study how power affects average Joes. They randomly assigned paid participants the roles of either “guard” or “prisoner” in a two-week simulation to learn if different titles changed actions in a faux jail setting.

They do.

The inherent imbalance of power, peer pressure and dehumanization of others quickly devolved into terrible “institutional” conditions. Authoritarianism and abuse flourished based on external identifiers. The “guards” got seriously into it, rendering their captives powerless. The results were so traumatic the study actually had to be terminated.

Halfway through.

In a uniform-makes-the-man type of way, the (imperfect) Stanford experiment illustrates how moral compasses can be untrued. Give a nice guy a higher purpose (be it helping a university undertake a social experiment or, say, protecting the borders) and a them-versus-us mentality, then throw in a needed pay check and voila — what should be ego dystonic is no longer. Ugliness is forgiven as duty.

“Just doing my job” provides both latitude and cover. (And paramilitary face masks offer anonymity.) Which means a normally decent guy — say, a big-hearted girl dad who indulgently lets his daughter paint his nails after church on Sunday — who would never intentionally orphan another’s child — is somehow able to power through and disappear a stranger.

Job seekers: Don’t become someone you’re not. Decency should never be for sale.

Erika Raskin

North Garden