Decarceration: Community treatment and the deviant : a radical view

by Andrew Scull

Book by Andrew T Scull

Genres: Mental Health, Sociology

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Andrew T. Scull (born 1947) is a British-born sociologist whose research is centered on the social history of medicine and particularly psychiatry. He is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Science Studies at University of California, San Diego and recipient of the Roy Porter Medal for lifetime contributions to the history of medicine. His books include Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine and Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity.

Scull was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of Allan Edward Scull, a civil engineer and Marjorie née Corrigan, a college teacher. He received his BA with first class honors from Balliol College, Oxford. He then studied at Princeton University, receiving his MA in Sociology in 1971 and his Ph.D. in 1974. He was a postdoc at University College London in 1976-77.

Scull taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1973 until 1978 when was appointed to the sociology faculty at University of California, San Diego as an Associate Professor. He was appointed a full professor in 1982, and Distinguished Professor in 1994.

Reviews

[Durakov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers of Scull's newer and more well-known books, like Madness in Civilization, will have trouble recognizing the author here. Decarceration was Scull's first major work, and, in some ways, one can see how traces of it have determined his interests throughout his career up to now.

The book is not too hard to summarize in a broad way. The question at the heart of the book is: why is there (in 1977) a tendency towards decarcerating the mad, particularly in the US and UK? Scull spends a good deal of the first half of the book arguing that the common interpretive models for the decline, and the explanations they engender, fail to get to the heart of the matter. He takes aim first at the interactionist/sociological framework popular in his time called "labeling theory." This is usually linked to Thomas Scheff and the idea that notions of deviance take shape in an interpersonal field where one actor is labeled by another, more powerful one, to suit strategic and moral imperatives.

This is rightly and roundly dismissed as inadequate to describe how and why massive social processes occur. In his view, it has led to partial and weak explanations for the development and dynamic of incarceration and welfare including the thesis that the availability of drugs or the critique of institutionalization were the decisive impetuses for decarceration. This part was tedious, because both the image of psychotropic drugs as a panacea and the vital impact sociological critique have been continuously critiqued since when this was written. That makes this account somewhat impressive, in that it outlined and predicted positions that are still being made today and already pointed out their shortcomings.

Scull could be criticized for going too far in the other direction, towards what he calls a "macrosociological" perspective. What he offers is a political economic historical interpretation of the mechanisms of incarceration, particularly psychiatric hospitals. Here, they serve primarily economic functions that have little to do with a moral logic, the latter of which is more likely to be molded around the needs of the former. In a field still so saturated with interactionist and moral argumentation with only rare mention of the real social context (capitalism) and its many imperatives and processes, it's honestly somewhat refreshing to read something that takes economic process seriously, even if it does so at the mocking expense of other theory.

Interestingly, he also looks at efforts to decarcerate criminals and juvenile delinquents, and seems to think it was possible that trends would have continue in that direction. This possibility was obviously not followed between 1977 and now, for some of the reasons he describes (moral arguments around cruelty were never going to gain as much ground when punishment was the point and the continued reliance on some concentrated congregate spaces of segregation), and other, more important ones, which he doesn't predict (alternative possibilities of profit extraction in the context of rising costs as compared to diversion strategies).

I wish there were more writings like this. Historical critiques of psychiatry expend so much effort on the ontological question of the reality of mental illness such that, when it comes to accounting for its political and economic function, they too often rely on overly simplistic models of instrumental social control (the state uses psychiatry to oppress problem groups) or labor discipline (psychiatry is about molding the perfect worker) that fail to take into account its many other tentacles and imperatives. Scull successfully argues that it by and large does not respond to moral critiques of its failings. If that were the case, the 19th century anti-asylum sentiment would have had a much more widespread effect, since it was equally vicious, wielded the courts against the asylums, and arguably came from more "reputable" moral authorities. The main difference was the economic conditions that made decarceration viable in the 1950s-70s. I also wish Scull had pursued this approach more thoroughly throughout his career. This is compelling stuff. It's clear he got milder and more sensitive as he got older. His indictment of the community care system is refreshing to some degree, but the vitriol of his language is intense. His tone has changed dramatically.

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

My son had to read this book for one of his college classes and I picked it up and decided to revisit my own college days and see if I still have it in me to grasp a book like this one. I quickly learned that I do not miss mandatory reading at all and am so thankful to be able to read what I want to read. Still, I persisted and finished the book, although I must have read certain paragraphs five times before I understood what the author was trying to convey.

Scull definitely provided a lot of detailed research in his survey of "decarceration," a process of releasing "mad people, criminals, and delinquents" from their respective institutions into the communities to allow society as a whole take part in their rehabilitation. (This book was published in 1977, so it contains many phrases and terms that are outdated today.)

There were times when I thought he could have spent a page to express his points when he instead took twice as many or more, but I haven't read too many books like this one since my college days and I own that my criticism may reflect more on me than the author. Still, I did glean some new insights into the history of "deviant groups," as he calls them, and their rehabilitation throughout the late 18th century on through the time of this book's publication. I had never heard of the term, "decarceration," and I appreciate a better understanding of it reading through Scull's words.