Madness and Segregative Control: The Rise of the Insane Asylum

Abstract

This paper forms part of an effort to develop an historically informed macro-sociological perspective on the inter-relationships between deviance, control structures, and the wider social systems of which they are a part. Focusing on the treatment of the mad, it seeks to provide a structural explanation of the adoption of the asylum as the primary response to the problems posed by lunatics. Both David Rothman's provocative recent work on the American "discovery of the asylum," and standard sociological and historical accounts which picture the asylum as a response necessitated by increasing urbanization and industrialization are shown to be empirically inadequate. Instead, stress is placed on the intimate ties between the emergence of segregative control mechanisms and the growth of an ever more highly rationalized capitalist social order.In recent years sociologists have rightly come to see deviance and control as essentially symbiotic rather than antagonistic phenomena. Unfortunately much of the work done pursuant to this basic insight has been marred by its narrow, ahistorical and non-structural focus. While the immediate interaction between deviants and control agencies and the etiological significance of deviance-processing have received considerable attention, the historical and structural contexts within which this processing occurs have been largely ignored. We have thus been forced to make do with "an analysis which lacks a sense of history, a sensitivity to institutional patterns, and a range which is wider than a narrow focus upon encounters between deviants and officials" (Rock 1974: 145). Adequate theoretical work in this area clearly demands that we develop an historically informed, macro-sociological perspective on the inter-relationships between deviance, control structures, and the wider social systems of which they are a part. More specifically, we need to clarify the developing relationships between the nature of deviance and its control, and the increasing rationalization of the social order which has been the dominant feature of Western social development since the Middle Ages. IThree key features distinguish deviance and its control in modern society from the shapes such phenomena assume elsewhere: (1) the substantial involvement of the state, and the emergence of a highly rationalized, centrally administered and directed social control apparatus; (2) the treatment of many types of deviance in institutions providing a large measure of segregation from the surrounding community; and (3) the careful differentiation of different sorts of deviance, and the subsequent consignment of each variety to the ministrations of experts-which last development entails, as an important corollary, the emergence of professional and semi-professional "helping occupations." Throughout much of Europe, England, and the United States, all these features of the modern social control apparatus are a comparatively recent development.•Revised version of a paper presented at the 70th Annual Meeting of the American Socio...

Using Fraser’s model of ‘progressive neoliberalism’ to analyse deinstitutionalisation and community care

“…These institutions were built on sites away from the main centres of population thus physically separating the "mad" from the rest of the population. Scull (1977) sees the rise of asylums as part of the Victorian response to the problems of urbanisation. In tracing the rise of the asylum, Scull (1977Scull ( , 1986 outlined the way that the development of the institution was linked to and played a role in the new status of psychiatry as a distinct branch of the medical profession.…”

“…Scull (1977) sees the rise of asylums as part of the Victorian response to the problems of urbanisation. In tracing the rise of the asylum, Scull (1977Scull ( , 1986 outlined the way that the development of the institution was linked to and played a role in the new status of psychiatry as a distinct branch of the medical profession. The new asylums were established to rescue the mad from the kinds of maltreatment and neglect, with which, they themselves became synonymous.…”

Reassessing the critical metaphor: An optimistic revisionist view

“…The genre, if not the name, emerged in the late 1960s, influenced by conflict and phenomenology/labeling theories 1. Particularly influential pre-1980 exemplares include Beirne (1979), Carter and Clelland (1979), Chambliss (1964Chambliss ( , 1966Chambliss ( , 1969Chambliss ( , 1971Chambliss ( , 1975, Currie (1974), Garafolo (1978), Kennedy (1976), Krisberg (1975), Pepinsky (1976), Pfohl (1978), Platt (1975Platt ( , 1977, Quirmey (1970Quirmey ( , 1975Quirmey ( , 1977Quirmey ( , 1979, Schwendinger andSchwendinger (1975, 1976), Scull (1977), Spitzer (1977), Spitzer and Scull (1977), and T.R. Young (1978).…”

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