ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to taxonomize institutional violence in order to understand how and why violence lies at the heart of institutionalization, and thus why the act of incarceration is in and of itself an inevitable act of violence. It proposes a continuum for understanding institutional violence, beginning with instrumental, institutionally sanctioned forms of daily care-qua-violence and ending with sadistic forms of violence that seem to exist only for the gratification of violence itself. The chapter argues that institutional violence is situational, and deeply tied to practices of dehumanization central to the institutional project. It shows that violence within institutions may be usefully categorized along a continuum that ranges from instrumental "cold" violence to sadistic "hot" violence. At the limit of cold, or instrumental, violence is "warm" violence. This is violence which is instrumental and to some extent institutionally sanctioned, but an intentional action rather than the unintended by-product of care.
