ABSTRACT
This article examines the social control of poor women—particularly, poor mothers—in a homeless shelter that houses women and children. My discussion of shelters identifies three important aspects of the social control of poor women: first, the direct, immediate control of women's activities in such institutions via rules and authority structures; second, the use of surveillance (the search for and gathering of information about poor women's lives, personalities, and behaviors); and finally, the indirect control of homeless mothers through the use of that information to intervene in their lives beyond the limited arena of the institution itself. My own study of a family homeless shelter is the focus of this article, but I also locate these three social control activities in the reported findings of other researchers who have examined shelters.
