Managing risk and marginalizing identities: on the society-of-captives thesis and the harm of social dis-ease

Abstract

This article develops the constitutive features of the society-of-captives thesis as suggested by Arrigo and Milovanovic, and Arrigo, Bersot, and Sellers. The relevance of this thesis is briefly explored in relation to the institutional and community-based treatment philosophies that currently inform the mental health and criminal justice systems. This exploration specifies how risk (being human and doing humanness differently) is managed symbolically, linguistically, materially, and culturally. The management of this risk extends to the kept as well as to their keepers, regulators, and watchers (i.e., the society of captives). This article calls for a new clinical praxis (being/doing a critical mindfulness) designed to overcome the totalizing madness (the harm of social dis-ease) that follows from managing risk fearfully and marginalizing identities desperately as reified recursively through society's captivity. The ethical underpinnings of this clinical praxis represent an emergent direction for undertaking correctional policy reform.

Keywords: clinical praxis; ethics; human risk management; institutional recovery and community reentry; self/society mutuality; society’s captivity.