Resocialization and Total Institutions

Socialization is the process through which people become members of society, both by internalizing shared norms and values and learning to perform social roles (e.g. as workers, wives or friends). While socialization was once assumed to be a process primarily associated with childhood, there is reasonable consensus that it is a continuous, lifelong process that prepares people for the transitions they will make between one phase or stage of life and another. At times people may experience resocialization. This occurs when, first, people are required to learn new norms and values associated with an unfamiliar social environment (such as when entering prison) or, second, they are required to re-learn norms and values associated with their culture or context of origin. Resocialization is often associated with total institutions, which are a distinct category of social organization characterized by bureaucratic regimentation and social isolation, as described originally by Erving Goffman in his book Asylums (1961).

Keywords Anticipatory Socialization; Desocialization; Mortification of Self; Paramount Reality; Resistance; Resocialization; Social Isolation; Socialization; Total Institution

Socialization > Resocialization & Total Institutions

Overview

Socialization refers to the process through which people become members of society, both by internalizing shared norms and values and learning to perform social roles (e.g. as workers, wives and friends). Socialization occurs in different settings and institutions such as the family, the education system and the workplace. While socialization was once assumed to be a process primarily associated with childhood, there is reasonable consensus that it is a continuous, lifelong process that prepares people for the transitions they will make between one phase or stage of life and another. Although there is variation in how those transitions are defined or distinguished, there is consensus that change and adaptation is an ever-present characteristic of human development.

At times people may experience resocialization. This occurs when, first, people are required to learn new norms and values associated with an unfamiliar social environment (such as when entering prison) or, second, they are required to relearn norms and values associated with their culture or context of origin. They may have, at one point, left this context and are now re-entering (such as returning to civilian life after time in prison). Resocialization is often associated with total institutions, which are a distinct category of social organization characterized by bureaucratic regimentation and social isolation, as described originally by Erving Goffman in his book Asylums (1961). Goffman identified prisons, mental hospitals and monasteries as examples of total institutions, and his insights have since been explored and expanded by a number of studies.

The Socialization Process

Much of the insight into socialization is grounded in a symbolic interactionist tradition to the study of social life. This approach emphasizes that social life largely depends on a shared sense of reality that defines how to act in particular social situations and how to interact with others in ways that make sense and contribute to social order. In the symbolic interactionist approach, social reality is not external to the individual, but is built up, or constructed, through interaction (e.g. gestures, conversations, symbols). Reality is therefore unstable, though dynamic; what is defined as real could shift at any moment and in this framework, successful interaction with others depends on the importance of the actor's ability to interpret the social world (Ritzer, 1992).

Because socialization is ongoing throughout the life course, researchers have identified different forms of socialization. First, primary association occurs within institutions such as the family, schools and the media. Such socialization can be both formal (through explicit rules) and informal (via coded messages and the "hidden curriculum" in which the values associated with a particular culture, such as capitalism, are embedded in the structure and organization of education). Second, anticipatory socialization occurs when people take on the norms and values of a role they desire; such as when those learning a particular occupation (e.g. nursing) take on the role-set (the professional identity of nurses) they seek to occupy (Lurie, 1981). Similarly, the high school student who begins wearing college student-type clothes once he has been accepted to a university is engaging in anticipatory socialization (Henslin, 2004). Third, resocialization occurs when people learn a new set of behaviors, practices and attitudes associated with a new context (Henslin, 2004). This form of resocialization could be associated with entering college, or even getting married.

These forms of resocialization are largely informal and voluntary. Resocialization can also be formal, and involuntary, and in such cases is mostly associated with institutional settings, such as the workplace, or total institutions.

Further Insights

Total Institutions

The concept of total institution was developed by the sociologist Erving Goffman as a result of research he conducted at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington D.C. while he was a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. The research was published as a book, Asylums in 1961. The hospital was a federal mental institution with more than 7000 patients and Goffman viewed it as a place that encompassed the whole of the lives of its inmates. Accordingly, he described a total institution as a specific type of place where:

…a large number of like-situated individuals, cut off from wider society for an appreciable amount of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life (Goffman, 1961, p. xiii).

Goffman identified several characteristics of total institutions and argued that they control all aspects of the daily lives of inmates, subject their residents to standardized activities, and apply formal rules and rigid scheduling to all activities.

In the total institution, inmates are separated from the outside world physically. For instance, total institutions are, in Goffman's definition, built environments that are segregated from everyday life through spatial barriers such as barbed wire and walls and interaction between inmates and people from the "outside" is physically prevented through devices such as locks and barred windows. Sutton's (2003) study of missions and reserves in Australia, using photographs as evidence, shows how the spatial and physical design of such missions were similar to 19th century workhouses, prisons, concentration camps and mental institutions. These missions removed indigenous people from public Australian life and played a role in the colonial control of indigenous peoples by breaking up Aboriginal families. Moreover, the experience of separation and control within the missions made it difficult for inmates to adjust to life outside and contributed to emotional disorders, an inability to live with others and make friends and increased the likelihood of illnesses such as diabetes and heart conditions (Sutton, 2003).

Total institutions also socially separate inmates from the outside world, though there are points of potential contamination that can threaten this separation. For instance, messy quarters can remind the inmate of the world beyond the institution and when an inmate loses control over who is observing her in the institution, or who knows about her past, she is contaminated by a forced relationship to these others. Other interpersonal contaminations or forced relationships include rape, sexual assault, or when the inmate's possessions are handled by officials or other inmates. Thus, for Goffman, a key characteristic of the total institution is that there is always a tension between the institution and the outside world and this tension is used "as strategic leverage in the management of men" (Goffman, 1961, p. 13).

The total institution controls the minute details of the inmate's life, and staff expect the inmates to be obedient to them. Inmates occupy a routinized lifestyle where meals, recreation, work and bedtimes are all tightly scheduled and uniforms may be required (such as in prisons, boarding schools or the military). Indeed, in total institutions, people are processed as things or objects whereas, in contrast, on the "outside," people are typically identified through personal characteristics and qualities (Sparks, Bottoms & Hay, 1996). These detailed rules and repetitive routines enable the institution to establish control and authority over the lives of inmates and ensure a power differential between those in charge and subordinates.

Thus, a key goal of resocialization within the context of the total institution is altering a person's behavior to fit the needs of the institution by controlling their immediate environment. Such control occurs via specific regimes, tight supervision, and routinization and entails a two-stage process: first, the new inmate is separated from her old life and the self is broken down; and second, a new self is developed via a system of rewards and punishments. Through resocialization processes that attack the self, people are batched into relatively undifferentiated groups (e.g. inmates or nurses).

While Goffman explicitly referred to prisons and mental institutions, other studies have examined and expanded the concept of total institution to include a range of institutions, such as assisted living centers, specialized hospitals for infectious diseases (such as tuberculosis and leprosy), training institutions (e.g. boarding schools, academies, and "boot camps"), and retreats associated with religious purposes or recovery (Manning, 2007). While these studies have challenged some of the characteristics that Goffman identified as crucial to the definition of a total institution, there is some consensus that the processes of resocialization he described create a paramount reality that is distinct from what new residents or inmates are familiar with.

Resocialization

The first step in resocialization occurs upon entering an institution. The staff immediately seeks to "break" the new inmates by undoing or destroying their self-image and independence (Stanko et al., 2004). Goffman referred to this process of undoing as the mortification of the self. It entails the use of entry rituals that strips a person of her former (outside) identity and replaces it with symbols of her new identity, such as haircuts, numbers or uniforms (Sparks, Bottoms & Hay, 1996). For instance, a study of nursing homes (Brogden, 2001) noted that when elderly people enter them, staff routinely begin using "baby-talk" in a way that infantilizes people and encourages dependence rather than independence. The dependence of residents makes it easier to run institutions like nursing homes. Similarly, a study of dementia (Askham, Briggs, Norman & Redfern, 2007) found that when dementia sufferers entered custodial care, taken for granted but significant aspects of their former lives (such as driving a car) were removed or taken from them in ways that made the new residents feel as though they had 'lost' their identities. Such mortification is a necessary precursor to the next step in resocialization, which emphasizes conformity to institutional norms, which are established via routines, rules and timetables.

However, this two-step process is not always successful. While some individuals may conform in institutional contexts, others may become hostile and rebellious, or find ways to escape.

Resistance to Resocialization: Escape Attempts

Because of the potential for totalizing control over the self that the resocialization process and the regimes of the total institution establish, inmates may seek ways to win back some sense of self autonomy (Cohen & Taylor, 1992). In their study of psychological survival in a British maximum-security prison, Cohen and Taylor (1992) refer to this phenomenon as "escape attempts." They argue that inmates in total institutions who are serving long sentences find subtle ways to make time pass, because time control by the institution (e.g. through time tables and indeed by having so much relatively unstructured time to pass) is one of the critical ways that inmates' lives and identities are regulated. Therefore, inmates develop subtle activities and practices to help them get through the business of every day. For these inmates, "getting by" is a precarious process because it requires that inmates balance the conformity that is required of them with attempts to "escape" from that conformity in order to hold onto a sense of self that is not subsumed by their identities as prisoners. They need to balance being in the prison world with not being of it.

While the power of Goffman's study of asylums lies in his categorization of a particular kind of social institution that is distinct from other spheres of social life and that is characterized by specific, identifiable properties, Cohen and Taylor extended their analysis of psychological survival in prisons (as an exemplar of resocialization in a total institution). They argued that the subtle activities that prison inmates engage in to "pass time" and to create a distinction between their lived sense of self and the identities imposed on them through prison regimes, are all ways of escaping from the prison as their paramount reality; that is, as their realm of everyday experience. While everyday life outside the prison cannot be defined as a total institution (in Goffman's terms), it nonetheless presents a paramount reality that constrains and limits people. Consequently, argued Cohen and Taylor, people seek to "escape" from this paramount reality through various activities and practices (e.g. hobbies, travel) and in doing so, protect a sense of self that is distinct from the identities bestowed on them by their everyday lives.

Issues

The Dehumanizing Impact of Total Institutions

While Cohen and Taylor discuss symbolic escape attempts as a form of resistance to resocialization practices within total institutions, studies of prisons and asylums generally show them to be brutal spaces of incarceration. For instance, many such institutions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were places where physically and developmentally disabled individuals were incarcerated. Indeed, many people were incarcerated in such institutions because they failed to conform to prevailing social expectations or flouted social conventions (such as having a child outside marriage). Researchers have documented how inmates of such institutions experienced degradation and humiliation (Malacrida, 2005), despite the claims of the institutions themselves to be places of care and rehabilitation. For instance, the Michener Center in Alberta, Canada, was described as a training school for developmentally disabled children and young adults (Malacrida, 2006). However, eugenics was a key policy and the center, like other similar institutions in Western Europe and North America, practiced a sterilization program.

Moreover, the center used punishments such as ward lock-downs and time out rooms to discipline inmates who were seen to misbehave (e.g. those who refused to eat institutional food, adhere to bedtimes or were aggressive toward staff) or who attempted escape. Such punishments "were a central form of physical and psychological social control reactive and proactive social control" (Malacrida, 2006, p. 528).

In Malacrida's (2006) study, one inmate survivor, Glen, described his experiences inside the "Time-Out Room":

The staff could look in from a window in the door but I couldn't see out of it. There was no toilet, and when I had to go, I had to bang on the door with my feet. But most of the time, no one would come, so I wet myself. I had to sit like that sometimes for hours until staff would come. That hurt my feelings (Malacrida, 2006, p. 531).

Such research is a reminder of how central dehumanization is to the daily routines and practices of total institutions and how central such institutions have been, historically, to the oppression of certain categories of people in the West (Davies, 1989). Indeed, in recognition of this dehumanization, in both the US and the UK from the 1970s onward, total institutions such as asylums and other places incarcerating the physically and developmentally disabled were gradually closed down in favor of "care in the community". However, despite their closures, some practices associated with power and control continue to be practiced (such as antidepressant prescription, psychosurgery and electroconvulsive therapy) (Brecht, 2004).

Beyond the Total Institution

Because socialization is an ongoing process, life beyond the total institution must also involve resocialization, as those who were previously inmates or residents must learn to adjust from living in an environment where their lives are highly prescribed to their new, non-institutionalized roles and environments. Studies of this form of resocialization (e.g. of Vietnam veterans, ex-cult members and Catholic priests and nuns who have departed their Orders) show this process is no less problematic and challenging than being resocialized into a total institution. One study (Mapel, 2007), for instance, followed five Western ex-Buddhist monks to life after being in a monastery for several years. Although Buddhist monasteries do not demand lifetime vows (as for example, required of those entering the Catholic priesthood), and monks are free to leave the monastery at any time, adjustment was challenging as they tried to deal with issues of grief, delayed development, missing out on life experiences, difficulties with intimacy, money, identity, depression, anxiety and confusion. This was combined with the hope and promise of many newly found freedoms involved in establishing a new life and identity. For these monks, resocialization involved moving from a context where life is highly routinized (albeit voluntarily) to a context where life is highly individualized.

Conclusion

The concept of resocialization refers to a process wherein a person must cast off a previous identity and learn a new one. Goffman's work on asylums as total institutions provides the definitive discussion of resocialization as a consequence of involuntary residence. In this context, resocialization is necessary for social control, which is further supported by spatial, physical and social separation and highly structured routines. For Goffman, the total institution represents a system that is beyond society, but is still charged with caring for or rehabilitating its inhabitants. However, other researchers have expanded the properties he ascribed to total institutions beyond physical entities (such as prisons) to social processes (such as colonialism). Yet, total institutions may not be as homogenous as Goffman observed (Davies, 1989) because there are significant differences in their degrees of bureaucratization, their physical and social closedness, and how compliance from inmates is elicited. In practice, institutions such as prisons, nursing homes and monasteries vary in their underlying functions, contradictions, and modes of entry and exit.

Despite some disagreement over what defines a total institution, Goffman's account of asylums led to the systematic study of total institutions as places of incarceration. While in the past, such incarceration was deemed necessary for rehabilitation (e.g. in relation to crime and mental illness), research has shown that the resocialization practices associated with total institutions were often brutally dehumanizing. They entailed the persistent destruction of the human self, such that resocialization from the institution back into society was, and is, accompanied by adaptation challenges. However, there is some evidence that people who have experienced resocialization in total institutions find ways to hold onto a sense of self that is beyond the institution: to escape, if not literally, then at least, symbolically.

Terms & Concepts

Anticipatory Socialization: When people take on the norms and values of a role they desire, such as when those learning a particular occupation (e.g. nursing).

Desocialization: Process in which the residents' rights are relinquished and they submit to the control of the staff of the institution.

Mortification of Self: Practices and rituals that strips a person of her former (outside) identity and replace it with symbols of her new identity.

Paramount Reality: The taken for granted reality of everyday life that shapes our identities and experience.

Resocialization: Occurs when people are required to learn new norms and values associated with an unfamiliar social environment (such as when entering prison) or when they are required to re-learn norms and values associated with their former culture or context of origin.

Social Isolation: The minimizing of social contact and interaction by separating an individual from that which is familiar.

Socialization: The process through which people become members of society, both by internalizing shared norms and values and learning to perform social roles.

Total Institution: An organizational and physical environment in which all aspects of an individual's life are subordinate to and dependent upon the authorities of the organization.

Bibliography

Askham, J., Briggs, K., Norman, I. & Redfern, S. (2007). Care at home for people with dementia: As in a total institution? Ageing & Society, 27 , 3-24.

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Cohen, S. & Taylor, L. (1992). Escape attempts: The theory and practice of resistance in everyday life. 2nd Ed. London: Routledge.

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Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. New York: Anchor Books.

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Malacrida, C. (2006). Contested memories: Efforts of the powerful to silence former inmates' histories of life in an institution for 'mental defectives'. Disability & Society, 21, 397-410. Retrieved March 23, 2009 from EBSCO online database, SocINDEX with Full Text http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=22483078&site=ehost-live.

Mapel, T. (2007). The adjustment process of ex-Buddhist monks to life after the monastery. Journal of Religion & Health, 46, 19-34. Retrieved March 23, 2009 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=24091458&site=ehost-live.

McHugh, P. (1966). Social disintegration as a requisite of resocialization. Social Forces, 44, 355–363. Retrieved November 1, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=13524138

Ritzer, G. (1992). Contemporary sociological theory (3rd. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Sparks, R., Bottoms, A. & Hay, W. (1996). Prisons and the problem of order. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Sutton, M-J. (2003). Re-examining total institutions: A case study from Queensland. Archaeology in Oceania, 38:78-88. Retrieved March 23, 2009 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=10878103&site=ehost-live.

Stanko, S. Gillespie, W. & Crews, G.A. (2004). Living in prison: A history of the correctional system with an insider's view. Westport CT: Greenwood Press.

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Suggested Reading

Bar-Yosef, R. (1968). Desocialization and resocialization: The adjustment process of immigrants. International Migration Review, 2, 27–45. Retrieved November 1, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=16484580

Fischer, M., & Geiger, B. (2006). A twenty year follow-up of the kibbutz resocialization program: Did it work and why? Conference Papers — American Society of Criminology, 2006 Annual Meeting.

Mesoniene, S. (2009). The problem of efficient resocialization: Legal regulations and social demands. Jurisprudencija, 4, 235–245. Retrieved November 1, 2013 from EBSCO Online Database SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=47525552

McHugh, P. (1966). Social disintegration as a requisite of resocialization. Social Forces, 44, 355-363. Retrieved April 13, 2008, from EBSCO online database, SocINDEX with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=13524138&site=ehost-live

Stolley, K.S. (2005) The basics of sociology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Essay by Marie Gould; Reviewed by Alexandra Howson; Edited by Alexandra Howson

Marie Gould is an Associate Professor and the Faculty Chair of the Business Administration Department at Peirce College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She teaches in the areas of management, entrepreneurship, and international business. Although Ms. Gould has spent her career in both academia and corporate, she enjoys helping people learn new things — whether it's by teaching, developing or mentoring.

Alexandra Howson Ph.D. taught Sociology for over a decade at several universities in the UK. She has published books and peer reviewed articles on the sociology of the body, gender and health and is now an independent researcher, writer and editor based in the Seattle area.

Alexandra Howson Ph.D. taught Sociology for over a decade at several universities in the UK. She has published books and peer reviewed articles on the sociology of the body, gender and health and is now an independent researcher, writer and editor based in the Seattle area.