Castles of our Conscience presents a new and distinctive analysis of the role of the modern state in the shaping of policies of social control. Staples provides a theoretical framework for understanding the mechanisms of state policy-making and capacity. This framework supports an interpretation of the changing nature of institutions of social control in the United States from the beginning in the nineteenth century to the present day.
A distinctive feature of the author’s approach is his critique of existing theories of the state as well as recent revisionist writing in social control. Both, he argues, have tended to either reduce the state to an instrument of class power or treat it in too ‘structuralist’ a fashion. Developing a sophisticated account of the relationship between the state and civil society he provides a history of social control policies in the United States that balances analytical concerns with historical narrative.
This book will be of interest to students and professionals in sociology, politics and criminology.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Introduction
1 Explaining Patterns of Institutional Social Control
From Progressivism to Revisionism
Toward a State-centered Perspective
The Structuration of the State: Form, Function, and Apparatus
Part I The Denial of Freedom in the New Republic: Social Control and the American State, 1800–1929
2 Charting the Liberal-Capitalist State
Production Politics in the Nineteenth-century Prison
The "Problem" of Prison Labor
The Origins of the Prison as Factory
Discipline, Punishment, and Capitalism
Working to Reproduce the State
3 Public Welfare in an Age of Social and Economic Crises
Poverty, Dependency, and the Poorhouse
From "Houses of Industry" to "Disgraceful Memorials"
Classification and the Growth of Specialized Institutions
Absorbing the Local State: Centralization, Political Power, and the State Apparatus
Part II Accumulating Minds and Bodies: Social Control and the American State, 1930–1985
4 Charting the Advanced-Capitalist State
Roads to the State Asylum
The Idle and Unproductive in the Penitentiary
The Juvenile Court and the Penetration of the Family
5 Contradictions and Consequences in Post-war Psychiatry
The State Hospital in the "New Age" of Community Mental Health
Opening the Back Doors: The Political Legitimacy of State Governments and the Early Signs of Deinstitutionalization
Community Psychiatry and the "New Frontier" of Progressive Social Reform
6 Public Policy under the Liberal Welfare State
From the "New Frontier" to the "Great Society": The Politics and Policies of the Kennedy-Johnson Years
"Gray Gold": The New American Nursing Home Industry
The Goal of "Reintegration": Offenders on Probation and Parole
Crises in the Community: the Politicization of America’s "Crime Wave"
Adolescents Go from Bad to Mad
7 The Evolution of the State Apparatus
The Dialectics of the State in Civil Society
Appendix: Concepts, Data, and Sources
Notes
References
Index
About the Author :
Bill Staples grew up on the south shore of Long Island, New York. He has been a commercial fisherman, taxicab driver, plumber's apprentice, and pizza maker. He studied sociology at the University of Oregon, the University of Southern California, and UCLA. Staples is currently the 2013-14 E. Jackson Baur Professor of Sociology and founding Director of the Surveillance Studies Research Center at the University of Kansas. In addition to the first edition of EVERYDAY SURVEILLANCE his previous books include CASTLES OF OUR CONSCIENCE: SOCIAL CONTROL AND THE AMERICAN STATE, 1800-1985, a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title, POWER, PROFITS, AND PATRIARCHY: THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF WORK AT A BRITISH METAL TRADES FIRM, 1791-1922 (with C. L. Staples), an American Sociological Association Book Award winner as well as and the two-volume reference work, THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PRIVACY, also a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
