The Discovery of the Asylum (New Lines in Criminology)
The Discovery of the Asylum (New Lines in Criminology)
This reissue of a classic study addresses a core concern of social historians and criminal justice professionals: Why in the early nineteenth century did a single generation of Americans resort for the first time to institutional care for its convicts, mentally ill, juvenile delinquents, orphans, and adult poor? Rothman’s compelling analysis links this phenomenon to a desperate effort by Jacksonian society to instill a new social order as it perceived the loosening of family, church, and community bonds. As debate persists on the wisdom and effectiveness of these inherited solutions, The Discovery of Asylum offers a fascinating reflection on our past as well as a source of inspiration for a new century of students and professionals in criminal justice, corrections, social history, and law enforcement as they shape arguments for the reform of prisons and mental hospitals.
User Ratings and Reviews
5 Stars A Model of Institutionalization as a Reaction to Disorder
I really enjoyed reading this book, though it did take me a while to read through it. Rothman advances an argument to explain why America turned to instituionalization of different classes of people during the Jacksonian period. His basic thesis is that medical elites feared the growing democratization of American society and therefore advanced the idea that institutionalization could make unproductive citizens productive and simletaneously serve as a model for the rest of the society.
In Rothman’s model, the “Discovery of the Asylum” was both a progressive and deeply conservative event. This conflict is never resolved, and was ultimately at the root of the great failure of the rehabilative model of insitutionalization in the post civil war period. Rothman persuaively argues that by the 1880’s, the idea that individuals could be rehabilitated by the process of instituionalization had been abandoned in favor of a “custodial” model.
Rothman looks at the examples of poor houses, pentientaries, orphanages and insane asylums to explicate his thesis.
Fans of Foucault’s “Discipline and Punishment”, Goffman’s “Asylums” and Sykes “The Society of Captives” should find this book enthralling.
Highly recommended
Filed under: Mental Health Book Reviews