ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the social control of poor women— particularly, poor mothers—in a homeless shelter that houses women and children. The dominant ideology of social policy “as a purely humanitarian enterprise” is not supported by the disciplinary tactics, interventions and attempts to resocialize clients by social service institutions that have been reported by researchers of the radical social work perspective. The radical social work literature has documented contemporary social control practices of welfare institutions and feminist historians have researched the intersection of social control and the development of social policy. Evidence of the direct control of women within shelters has been documented by researchers of battered women’s shelters. The rules are a point of contention among the residents, who often express resentment against the direct control that the shelter exerts over their daily lives. The many rules around which life at the shelter is constructed serve to increase the institution’s awareness about resident activity.
