On admission to an institution people are stripped of past
lives lose what made them individual and the roles they
once had, bathing, weighing medical examinations, lose
personal belongings and given institution clothes and
violations of privacy
Instead they have the role imposed on them the insititution has chosen
for them
Batch Living
People treated as if they are all the same
No individuality, no freedom - controlled by
strict rules
do things together as a large batch , all treated the
same often do things at the same time to stick to
timetable, no personal choice, no free time and no
choice of companions
Binary Management
Staff and inmates controlled and kept
seperate by two different set of rules
Treat each other with suspiscion
Staff feel superior and inmates inferior
Staff have power and use distance as social
weapon and with hold information
Inmates are dependent and feel inferior and weak
Institutional Perspective
The institutional way of life takes over
Determines the way in which inmates and staff
experience and understand their lives, denies individual
point of view
often through events and activities designed to create a
sense of community - house magazines and dances/ football
What is a Total institution?
Jones and Fowles (1984)
Erving Goffamn 1961
* Place of work/ residence *
Many people in same situtaion
*Cut off from society * enclosed
from formal life
Continuum : open closed - Total
institution is closed end of continuum -
completely emcompassing
Actually no institution
is completely closed,
since non residents
cross boundaries.