Total Institutions

Total institutions are defined in this reader not as a separate class of social establishments that exercise complete or nearly complete control over their population, but rather as specific institutions which exhibit to an intense degree certain characteristics found in all institutions. The issue therefore is not which institutions are total and which are not, but rather how much totality does each of our institutions display? Representing an important new approach to problems of social control, this book concentrates on dynamics—how institutions change in the extent or nature of their totality over time and how they display totality in different ways—rather than the mere enumeration of common traits.

Samuel E. Wallace is assistant professor of sociology at Brandeis University and lecturer in sociology at the Laboratory of Community Psychiatry of the Harvard Medical School. His basic research methods are field studies and participant observation. Wallace's major publications include Skid Row as a Way of Life and The Urban Ambiance (with Theodore Caplow and Sheldon Stryker). Another book The Sociology of Life Styles is forthcoming. He is currently directing a study of widows of men who have committed suicide called "The Surviving Conjugant."