Homes and Institutions

Abstract

All the earlier essays in this book have been concerned with the social relationships of people who live in domestic settings which they regard as ‘home’, but there is, of course, a small but growing proportion of the population who live, on a long-term basis, in settings which are not their own homes nor those of friends or relatives. They live in prisons, hostels, boarding houses, hotels, boarding schools, long-stay hospital wards, children’s homes, residential care homes and nursing homes. They do so sometimes out of choice but often out of necessity. In many cases they are dependent in some way, either because of physical or mental infirmity, or they have special needs which cannot be met in a domestic environment. In the case of criminal offenders, they may be regarded as a threat to society and deliberately removed from their own homes. Many of the institutions in which this diverse group spend their lives are either owned by the state or are governed by state policies which are designed to ensure certain standards of care and facilities. In a number of cases the state intervenes to create a substitute home and a ‘home-like’ or ‘homely’ environment. This kind of intervention affords us a unique opportunity to examine how public agencies (as they see it - representing public opinion) set out to create a ‘home’ ab initio. It brings into sharp focus the kind of criteria we employ when defining a ‘home’ and the kind of structures, relationships and facilities we seek to replicate when providing a home for those who do not have one.