“And there is just enough sadism in the criminal justice system so that if you were given one of these belts, you were likely to be shocked, at least once.”
It’s not just the criminal justice system, it’s humanity in general. They did studies with grad students given the power to shock each other, and they all very quickly adapted to using that power sadistically.
Yet, we ignore what we know of human nature and give cops tazers, knowing they’ll be used for torture.
Two things, first most cops prefer tasers, because guns only have three modes, holstered, brandished, and shooting; but the vast majority of what they do needs something intermediate to that. Other weapons, like a billy club or a tonfa, have their own problems as well.
As far as the Milgram experiment, of giving shocks, while that was a basic breakthrough, there is much, much more to that psychology.
For example, individual action vs. mob action, “identity known” action vs. anonymous action, and one I have been very surprised by, is what I would call “Internet mob mentality”.
In a forum like FR, most posters are well behaved, with just some minimal moderation. But in other forums, anonymous posters can turn vicious, given the right subject.
One that impressed me was a discussion about crime and punishment, where posters were almost in a contest of how sadistic they could be towards prisoners, and their approval of the sadism of others. Torture such as flogging, branding, amputation, and the death penalty for even petty crimes. Some showed twisted creativity in this.
But it also raised the question of were they just too inhibited to propose this in person to someone else, or if they found the peer approval they wanted, were they serious about these things?