EUGENICS AND THE ASYLUM

Despite their aura of self-containment and apparent closure the instit utions built to confine people diagnosed as 'mentally deficient' or 'f eebleminded' were closely connected to broader social structures. A re cent paper presenting involuntary sterilization almost exclusively as an internal control measure attempts to sever this relationship. Yet t he encoding of eugenic forces both within and beyond the asylum wall r einforces the idea that, far from being institutionally disconnected f rom modern society, the custodial asylum represents one of its most po werful archetypes.