THE 'CYCLE OF DOING COERCION': AN ETHNOGRAPHY ON THE USE OF FORCE AND VIOLENCE IN BOTH A PRISON AND AN ASYLUM

This thesis firstly introduces the normative approach to power and Coercion on the landing selectively addressing the literatures of prison sociology, and policing . Then it presents the interactionist approach adopted. In the substantive part of the thesis it will outline the ‘organization of the use-of-force in practice’. Chapter 5 focuses on what officers do when they routinely patrol the wing, either in calm and boring situations or during more violent situations that may or may not lead to the start of what is here called and reconstructed as the ‘Cycle of doing coercion’ (that I also call the’ Cycle of the use-of-force and violence’ or simply ‘the Cycle’). Both Chapter 6 and 7 will instead focus on the emergency squad intervention on the wing. Lastly,Chapter 8 is methodologically oriented and deals selectively only with few relevant methodological and ethical issues that have emerged doing this particular ethnography in a custodila complex in Italy.