Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison

by Gresham M. Sykes

Book Overview

Gresham Sykes wrote the book at the height of the Cold War, motivated by the world's experience of fascism and communism to study the closest thing to a totalitarian system in American life: a maximum security prison. The book is remarkably short--just 150 pages--but bristles with ideas. Sykes argued that many of the psychological effects of modern prison are even more brutal than the physical cruelties of the past. The trauma of being designated...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691028141
• ISBN13: 9780691028149
• Release Date: February 1971
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Important Precursor to Goffman and Foucault

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!