What do we know (Insights about which we feel confident)
1. Research on a variety of organisations, particularly jails, boarding schools, military academies and convents, indicates that they have two properties in common. The first property is that they are all dedicated to re-socialisation of their ‘inmates’; that is, they all aim to produce the ‘new person’ who approximates a social template predetermined by each organisation. The second property is that in almost all empirical studies of this type of organisation, there are periodic outbreaks of conflict (see White 1999; Blue 1998). This conflict involves both inmates and inmate, and inmate and staff. Perhaps counter predictively, there are, for instance, reported cases of conflict between long stay hospital patients and staff (Pink 2000). The prevalence of conflict in organisations dedicated to resocialisation and scholars’ expectation of its existence (see eg. White 1999; Green 1977; and Red 1975) suggest that conflict is a routine, recurring property of these organisations.
Summary statement: Conflict is a recurring feature of resocialising organisations.
2. Positing conflict as a recurring feature of organisations leaves its explanation wanting. One of the first places a social scientist might look for an explanation is the research on socialisation. Socialisation – the process of becoming a competent social being – is the subject of an immense literature. The focus in this project is more on re-socialisation, which is the process of relearning after primary socialisation. There are two clear insights. The first is that socialisation is never perfect. This applies to resocialisation as much as primary socialisation. Green and Green’s (2001) comparative study of cadets in a military academy and inmates in a jail demonstrates that that, notwithstanding the setting, the resocialisation of individuals is far from perfect. Furthermore, they show that those who do not conform to organisational expectations are the ‘troublemakers’ in those organisations. It is clear that ‘troublemakers’ exist but are they always the source and explanation of conflict? The second insight is that inmates, notwithstanding the type of organisation, are not as varied in their social characteristics as might be expected. Police academy cadets come from similar backgrounds, as do novices in convents (Black 1998). The implication of this insight is that the propensity of some individuals to engage in conflict may be related to their social origins rather than factors in the organisational setting.
Summary statement: All socialisation is not perfect and this applies to resocialisation in organisations where inmates’ backgrounds are similar.
3. One of the most compelling attempts to understand behaviour in organisations of the type under examination is Grey’s (1961) [actually Goffman 1961] study of ‘total institutions’. This concept is applied to those organisations that deal with people; where there is a clear distinction between staff and inmates; where there is a strict routine and an ordered round of daily events; and where staff and inmates are separated, although both generally live on site. Given that this concept applies to the type of organisation in this study, we have a clear picture of the nature of these organisations because of the sensitising role of Grey’s notion of ‘total institution’.
Summary statement: Resocialising organisations share a number of properties concerning staff and inmates.