Characteristics of Total Institutions Erving Goffman

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Characteristics of Total InstitutionsErving
Goffman

• CJ 365, Summer 2001
• May 29, 2001

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Introduction

• Institutions
• Buildings or plants in which activity of a
  particular kind regularly goes on.
• Every institution captures something of the time
  and interest of its members and provides
  something of a world for them.
• Total Institutions
• They are different in that the total character is
  symbolized by a barrier that is often built into
  the physical plan.
• Wire fences, high walls, cliffs

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Total Institutions

• Totalistic features
• One of the central features of the total
  institution is the breakdown of barriers between
  spheres of life (sleep, play work)
• All aspects of life are conducted in the same
  place
• Each activity is carried out in the company of a
  large group
• Activities are tightly scheduled
• Daily tasks all come together to serve a larger
  goal of the institution.

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Total Institutions

• Staff-Inmate Split
• Two different social and cultural worlds develop
• There is considerable social distance between the
  two groups
• Work
• Whatever incentive is given for work it will
  not have the same significance it had on the
  outside.
• Work payment structure of our society
• The family

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Inmate World

• Mortification processes
• Presenting Culture
• What the inmate brings to the institution
• The goal of the total institution is NOT to
  provide a different culture but to develop a
  tension between the home world and the
  institutional world.
• Stripping Processes
• Mortification of the self ID, uniform,
  channels of communication shut off

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Authority System

• Authority is of the echelon kind
• ANY member of the staff has a certain right to
  discipline
• The authority of corrective sanctions is directed
  at a great multitude of items of conduct
• Dress, manners, social intercourse
• Misbehavior in one sphere of life are held
  against ones standings in other spheres
• Rules are abundant, novel, and closely enforced

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Privilege System

• House Rules
• Formal set of proscriptions that lay out the main
  requirements of inmate conduct.
• Rewards and Privileges
• These remunerative controls are held out in
  exchange for obedience to staff.
• Release binge fantasy
• Punishments
• Usually given out as a result of rule breaking
• Usually more severe than would be given out in
  the outside world.

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Privilege System

• Punishments and privileges are themselves modes
  of organization peculiar to total institutions.
• No cigarettes, weight room pass.
• It is important to see that the question of
  release from the total institution is elaborated
  into the privilege system.
• Increase in good time, sentence extensions
• Punishments and privileges come to be geared into
  a residential work system
• Immediately associated with this system is some
  standard social processes important in the life
  of total institutions.

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Informal Privilege System

• Institutional Lingo
• Secondary Adjustments
• Techniques that do not directly challenge the
  rules but allow inmates to gain some
  satisfaction.
• Inmate code
• Kitchen Strata
• Largely informal stratification of inmates

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Adaptation Alignments

• Situational Withdrawal
• The inmate withdraws from prison society
• Rebellious Line
• The inmate intentionally challenges the
  institution
• Rebel morale
• Colonization
• The inmate takes the largest satisfaction
  possible from the institution
• Breaks the tension between outside and inside self

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Adaptation Alignments

• Conversion
• The inmate tries to take on the role of the
  perfect inmate. square johns
• Playing it Cool
• Most inmates take on these alignments at
  different times, but do not go to the extreme.
• Hybrid model
• All of the alignments serve an important role in
  inmate coping
• Immunize the self from the tension with the
  outside world

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Culture Themes

• There is a strong feeling that time spent in an
  establishment is time wasted
• Inmates feel that they are totally exiled from
  living
• A peculiar and high level of self-concern is
  engendered.
• The story
• Removal activities
• These activities draw the self out of the current
  situation
• Movies, weightlifting, social activities

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Consequences