Asylum to Prison (Justice, Power, and Politics)

The asylum did not die during the process of deinstitutionalization, as Anne Parsons reveals. Instead, it returned in the modern prison industrial complex as the government shifted to a more punitive, institutional approach to social deviance. Focusing on Pennsylvania, the state that ran one of the largest mental health systems in the country, Parsons tracks how the lack of community-based services, a fear-based politics around mental illness, and the economics of institutions meant that closing mental hospitals fed a cycle of incarceration that became an epidemic.

This groundbreaking book recasts the political narrative of the late twentieth century, as Parsons charts how the politics of mass incarceration shaped the deinstitutionalization of psychiatric hospitals and mental health policy making. In doing so, she offers critical insight into how the prison took the place of the asylum in crucial ways, shaping the rise of the prison industrial complex.

To many, asylums are a relic of a bygone era. State governments took steps between 1950 and 1990 to minimize the involuntary confinement of people in psychiatric hospitals, and many mental health facilities closed down. Yet, the asylum did not disappear entirely. Instead, it found a new form within the modern prison system, as the government shifted its approach to addressing social deviance from a focus on community-based services to a more punitive, institutional model.

In her book, Parsons examines the case of Pennsylvania, which had one of the largest mental health systems in the country. She reveals how the lack of adequate community-based resources, combined with a fear-driven political climate around mental illness, led to a cycle of incarceration that filled the void left by the closure of psychiatric hospitals. The economics of maintaining large institutional facilities also played a role, as the cost-cutting measures associated with deinstitutionalization ultimately paved the way for the expansion of the prison industrial complex.

By reframing the political narrative of the late 20th century, Parsons provides critical insight into how the prison system came to occupy the space once filled by the asylum. Her work sheds light on the complex interplay between mental health policy, criminal justice, and the broader socioeconomic forces that have shaped the evolution of these institutions. In doing so, she offers a compelling perspective on the transformations that have occurred within the realm of social deviance and the ways in which the prison has become the modern-day embodiment of the asylum.

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