UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST

FACULTY OF SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL WORK

The Underlife of Total Institutions

BUCHAREST 2021
 In the subchapter “Part Two: Hospital Underlife”, from the chapter“The Underlife of
a Public Institution: A study of Ways of Making Out in a Mental Hospital”, from the book
“Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates” written by
Erving Goffman, is described the life of the inmates and the patients from hospitals. This
chapter describes well how was the life of the people who lived in mental hospitals and
explains their behavior.

In Goffman’s perspective, “The first thing to note is the prevalence of make-do’s”

(Erving Goffman, “Asylums: Part Two: Hospital Underlife”, 1961, pp 207). This is the way
that Erving Goffman starts this subchapter. He mentions that the inmates and the patients
who took part in every social establishment used to own different objects, or how he named
them, “artifacts”, whose purpose was to change the life that is already established for them,
modifying the conditions in their favour. Usually, these “artifacts” were previously different
objects with different purposes, but modified by the inmates to serve their will. The example
that Goffman uses in this context is: “a knife may be hammered from a spoon, drawing ink
extracted from the pages of Life magazine, exercise books were used to write betting
slips.”(Erving Goffman, “Asylums: Part Two: Hospital Underlife”, 1961, pp 207). Goffman
mentions more habits and artifacts of the inmates during the first part of this subchapter, but
the most important object he mentioned was a shoe, only used by experienced patients in
other imprisoning institutions.

Other elements that are part of the inmates life, mentioned in this subchapter, are the
practices that they used to do to be pleased. This practices are named by Goffman as
“working the system”. Some of the most common practices were calling in sick and denying
with the ward discipline, in order to get observed and then to be engaged in social interaction.
It turned out that most of these practices were not related to mental illness. Some of them
used these practices to get more food at the canteen or to get snacks for the night. In this
concept of “working the system” can be included the usage of town parole as well. Most of
the inmates who benefited of this town parole used it in their advantage to make their life or
their friend’s life easier. All the practices mentioned above are mostly used for their
individual benefit, and sometimes in the benefit of the person who is closest to them. It has
been observed that practices who are in benefit of the whole group of people are very rare,
and where it was observed was at people who were transferred from prisons.
 Even though these hospitals kept people with real problems, some of the guards and
the patients confessed that some people came in hospitals only to use it in their advantage.
For example, some people came in hospitals only to avoid their family and their problems
from work. Others confessed that they knew people who came in hospitals only to benefit of
the free medical care and dental work. In most of the worst cases, people came in hospitals to
avoid their punishment as criminals.

Goffman seems to insist in the third part of the subchapter of the book “Part Two:
Hospital Underlife” that obtaining an assignment could be the easiest and the most important
path to work the system: “Perhaps the most important way in which patients worked the
system in Central Hospital was by obtaining a “workable” assignment, that is, some special
work, recreation, therapy or ward assignment”(Erving Goffman, “Asylums: Part Two:
Hospital Underlife”, 1961, pp 219).

People tend to get an assignment from whose work they would profit for themselves.
Considering this fact, patients and inmates tended to choose mostly the kitchen assignments,
from where they could get extra food, and the laundry assignment, from where they could get
most of the time clean clothes. Because this two assignments were the most famous among
inmates and patients, there weren’t enough spaces for everyone, so the ones that couldn’t join
these two assignments had to choose another ones. Other assignments that people tend to
choose were: shoe repair shop, library assistant or ice truck worker. Of course, there were
other many assignments that people chose. Even though an assignment seems not to offer
very good benefits, it isn’t like that. Every assignment is good in its way. For example, the
ones working in a shoe repair shop will always have good quality shoes and the ones working
as ice truck workers would be in a cool place in the summer. It has been observed that in
hospitals, the main reason patients and inmates chose to take an assignment was to avoid the
supervisory control and physical discomfort: “In the hospital one of the most general reasons
taking on an assignment wast to get away from the ward and the level of supervisory control
and physical discomfort there”(Erving Goffman,”Asylums: Part Two: Hospital Underlife”,
1961, pp 224).

Other perspective over the hospital’s underlife belongs to Thomas J. Scheff. In his
piece of work, “Control over policy by attendants in a mental hospital”, Thomas J. Scheff
mentions that sometimes a group of inmates can take the control over the policy of a mental
hospital. In his words: “In order for a subordinate group to exert control over organization
policy, it must, first, exact compliance from the superior group and, then, maintain discipline
and a united front among its own members”(Thomas J. Scheff, “Control over policy by
attendants in a mental hospital”, 1961, pp 93). These are the usual steps that a group of
inmates follow to obtain the control. He also mentions that the group of inmates sometimes
can take part in changing a mental hospital’s policy, using the vulnerability of the
administration.

With a different point of view and a different concept comes Samuel E. Wallace, in
his book “Total Institutions”. Here, he explains us what are the priorities of the two groups
from total institutions: the first group, the staff, is occupied with the surveillance, and the
second group, the inmates, are occupied with the conformity. He claims that these two groups
are not in good relations in any total institution and each of these groups see the other as a
threat and tends not to have trust or put their faith in it. Two factors that can explain why
these two groups are in bad terms can be: communications between staff and inmates are not
allowed and also the inmates are restricted from knowing the decision the staff makes about
them. These 2 factors are very important in understanding the relation between staff and
inmates in total institutions. Other factor that makes this relation from these two groups to be
in bad terms is the obedience that the inmates needs to prove in order to make their lifes
easier. By proving themselves disobedient, the inmates will suffer a bad life in these
institutions and, therefore, they are forced to act obedient. Also, the inmate’s life is not in his
hands, as it is controlled by the institution through staff. The inmate’s life is primarly
controlled through sanctions and so the inmate learns how to follow the laws imposed by the
total institutions. Considering this fact, by learning to follow the laws imposed to him, the
inmate will receive a reward, that consists in an easier and better life in the institution.

A different problem is discussed by Susan Easton, in her book “Prisoners’ Rights:

Principles and Practice”, in the chapter “Prisoners’ rights: from social death to citizenship”.
She states that even though there are laws and politics regarding prisoners’ rights, these right
are sometimes not respected. This is a real problem, because even though prisoners did bad
things to end up in jail, they are still humans and they still have rights.

Maria Laura Alzua, Catherine Rodriguez and Edgar Villa come with a hard truth in
the chapter written by them: “The Quality of Life in Prisons: Do Educational Programs
Reduce In-Prison Conflicts?” from the book “The Economics of Crime: Lessons for and from
Latin America”, written by the atuhors Rafael Di Tella, Sebastian Edwards and Ernesto
Schargrodsky. The authors of the chapter claim that the quality of the life that inmates live in
prison is very essential and it has to do with the punishment they face in prison. Considering
this fact, they admit that the number of crimes in a society is linked to the conditions of
prisons from that society. They say that if a society has prisons that offer a hard life for its
prisoners, the criminality in that society decreases very much. They also claim, when it
comes to prisoners, that a prison is more effective if they offer harsh lifes for the inmates than
if they offer death penalty.

One more aspect of the underlife of the total institutions is discussed by Nicos P.
Mouzelis in the chapter “On total institutions” from his book “Sociology”. In his piece of
work, Nicos talks about the mortification process, which he claims about that it is used to
control prisoners and inmates who belong to total institutions. It is one of the most common
processes used in total institutions that seems to be effective. This process is about
humiliating the inmates and prisoners and destroying their self esteem, so that they can be
easily manipulated. That is because when people get demoralised and they are low on self
esteem, they are very easy to be controlled rather than confident people and people with high
self esteem. One more argument that has to be included about the mortification process is
that the staff is predisposed to act violently and aggressive with the inmates and prisoners
because of the power they own, being compared with a tyrant.

In my point of view, about the first concept discussed above, as I have seen in movies
or read in books, both based on real life, people tend to obtain different objects when they
find themselves in critical or harsh situations. Considering this fact, living in a prison or in a
mental hospital, whether a person has a mental illness or not, or, better saying, living in a
total institution, makes people feel uncomfortable and primary instincts of humans activate,
this way they are trying to obtain resources so that they can make their life easier.

About the concept of “working the system”, how Goffman calls it, could also be
called as life hacks, in my opinion. These practices are used by inmates and prisoners to help
themselves or the people close to them to have an easier life in total institutions. They can use

these life hacks to get more food, to get more attention, to get more rest, or anything else they
need. The assignments prisoners and inmates choose to do in these kind of institutions are
also like the practices mentioned above, they choosing the assignments in the benefit of
themselves, so that they could have clean clother every day, extra food in the canteen or good
quality shoes.

Talking about the rights of the prisoners and inmates, many people know that they are
not respected in a total institution. Even though their rights are mentioned in laws and
policies, most of the staff from this kind of institutions make abuse of their power and do not
respect the inmates’ and the prisoners’ rights. The majority of people did really bad things to
make them end up in such institutions, but, in my opinion, if something is written in the law,
it has to be respected.

And my opinion about the ways total institutions control its inmates and prisoners is
not a positive one, nor a negative one, it is rather a neutral one. It is certain that people who,
for example, go to prison, are criminals and they ended up in prison for a good reason. Also,
no one should expect to be treated good after they did criminal activities, especially in a
prison, where people are sent in order to be punished and re-educated. So, following this
argument, the staff from total institutions have a bad behavior around inmates and prisoners,
firstly, because they make abuse of their power, as discussed above, and secondly, because
they want to re-educate the prisoners and the inmates, so when they get out of the total
institutions, they will not do criminal activities ever again.

Finally. in my opinion, the underlife of total institutions needs to be a more researched

subject. Not so many people have tried to investigate this part of the total institutions, most of
them trying to make a research only on the people who are being kept in total institutions.
Erving Goffman, and the other authors and sociologists mentioned in this essay are one of
those people who tried to come with something new, who tried to accomplish things not so
many people did before.
Bibliography

Alzua M. L., Rodriguez C. and Villa E. (2010) “The quality of life in prisons: Do educational
programs reduce in-prison conflicts?”, The economics of crime: Lessons for and from Latin
America, pp 239-264

Goffman E. (1961) “Part Two: Hospital Underlife”, Asylums: Essays on the social situation
of mental patients and other inmates, pp 207-227

Easton S. (2011), “Prisoners’ rights: from social death to citizenship”, Prisoners’ rights:
Principles and practice, Abingdon: Taylor & Francis, pp 1-25

Mouzelis N. P. (1971) “On total institutions”, Sociology, Vol. 5(1), pp 113-120

Scheff T. J. (1961), “Control over policy by attendants in a mental hospital”, Journal of

Health and Human Behavior, Vol. 2(2), pp 93-105

Wallace S. E. (2017), Total Institutions, Routledge, New York