Asylums By Goffman Analysis

516 Words3 Pages

Asylums Total institutions of our society can be listed in five rough groups. The first group are the institutions established to care for people that are felt to be both incapable and harmless, such as people who are blind, elderly people, orphans (Goffman 1961). The author feels that if these people are able to look after themselves to a certain extent they should not be locked up in asylums. For example when elderly people are put in nursing homes, they often lose their independence as they become dependent on other people all the time. The second group of people that were placed in an institution were people that were felt to be both incapable of looking after themselves and a threat to the community. These institutions were TB sanitaria, mental hospitals and …show more content…

The third type of total institutions is organised to protect the community against intentional dangers, institutes such as Jails, penitentiaries, P.O.W. camps, and concentration camps (Goffman 1961), The author feels that putting these kind of people in institutions makes the situation worse, if these people that intentionally put the community in danger are put in to institutions with other people that have committed the same crimes, if they do not get the adequate help, how are they expected to integrate back in to society when they have been institutionalised to that extent. Fourth there are institutions were people go to engage in work these are institutions such as army barracks, ships, boarding schools, work camps, colonial compounds, and large mansions from the point of view of those who live in the servants’ quarters (Goffman 1961). In the authors opinion people that go to work in the army and other institutions like this loose there identity. When you go in to the army you have to were the same cloths and also get their head shaved Lastly there are those established designed as retreats from the worlds even while often serving also training stations for the religious