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Title: Society of Captives by Gresham Sykes ISBN: 0-691-02814-1 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 February, 1971 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)
Rating: 5
Summary: Important Precursor to Goffman and Foucault
Comment: No reviews for this book? Hard to believe given the number of used copies available. Surely many have read "Society of Captives"?
Sykes uses the sociological framework of Talcott Parsons to analyze the "life of prison" in terms of its effects on the inmates. Sykes was obviously a key reference point for Goffman's work in "Asylums". Sykes works around the idea of describing a maximum security prison as a "total institution", but fails to really nail the concept down.
He makes some interesting observations about the conflicting motives of guards on the front line of the prison. I found troubling his conclusion that the level of control sought to be imposed upon the prisoners was ever elusive. This seemed, to me, to be a justification for the behavior that goes on behind prison walls.
His interesting discussion of prison riot and rebellion prefigures some of Foucault's analysis in "Discipline and Punish". In fact, I picked up my copy of Discipline and Punish immediately after (and during) reading this book and found the effect to be akin to a light bulb going on in my head.
While Sykes lacks the conclusions of Foucault, his simplified analysis of the structure of prison makes reading Foucault's "Discipline and Punish" about 100% easier.
Here is not the place for a more detailed comparison between the two books. None the less, any committed reader of Discipline and Punish should feel compelled to digest this book: After all, it only costs a buck and can be read in a single afternoon!
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Title: Stateville: The Penitentiary in Mass Society by James B. Jacobs, Morris Janowitz ISBN: 0226389774 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: January, 1983 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: In the Mix: Struggle and Survival in a Women's Prisonn (Suny Series in Women, Crime and Criminology) by Barbara Owen ISBN: 079143608X Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr Pub. Date: February, 1998 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry (Studies in Crime and Public Policy) by Joan Petersilia ISBN: 019516086X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society by David Garland ISBN: 0226283844 Publisher: University of Chicago Press Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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Title: Going Up the River : Travels in a Prison Nation by Joseph Hallinan ISBN: 0812968441 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 08 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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