Concord Prison Experiment

The Concord Prison Experiment, conducted from 1961 to 1963, was designed to evaluate whether the experiences produced by the psychoactive drug psilocybin, derived from psilocybin mushrooms, combined with psychotherapy, could inspire prisoners to leave their antisocial lifestyles behind once they were released. The efficacy was to be judged by comparing the recidivism rate of subjects who received psilocybin with the average for other Concord inmates.

Staff

The experiment was conducted between February 1961 and January 1963 in Concord State Prison, a maximum-security prison for young offenders, in Concord, Massachusetts by a team of Harvard University researchers. The team were under the direction of Timothy Leary and included Michael Hollingshead, Allan Cohen, Alfred Alschuder, George Litwin, Ralph Metzner, Gunther Weil, and Ralph Schwitzgebel, with Madison Presnell as the medical and psychiatric adviser. The original study involved the administration of psilocybin manufactured by Sandoz Pharmaceuticals to assist group psychotherapy for 32 prisoners in an effort to reduce recidivism rates. The researchers would administer psilocybin to themselves along with the prisoners, on the grounds of "[creating] a sense of equality and shared experience, and to dispel the fear that often accompanies relationships between [experimenters] and [subjects]".

Results

Records at Concord State Prison suggested that 69% of the 32 subjects would return to prison within six months of parole. However, after six months, only 8 (25%) of those on parole had returned, six for technical parole violations and two for new offenses. Few short-term projects with prisoners have been effective to even a minor degree.

In addition, a selection of personality tests were administered to the prisoners both before and after the psilocybin experiences, consisting of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, the California Psychological Inventory, the Maher Sentence Completion Test (designed to measure cynicism in prisoners), and a Thematic Apperception Test (constructed to measure motives).