The article is focused on the research of social control and functioning of total institutions in the social control policy in the Postmodern society.

The relevance of this study is explained with qualitatively new trends in the development of the Postmodern society, where criminal justice is increasingly ceasing to be actually classical justice in the traditional sense, and is increasingly manifesting itself as a purely political tool. In the paper, the author departs from the traditional approach to social control, which in the light of classical views is carried out by society on the "deviant".  

The author postulates that in the new coordinate system of Postmodern society number of deviants expands due to potential (sometimes even simply declared) deviants. The key categories of protection of society are not "crime" and "just and lawful punishment" but deeper and penetrating social control over much larger groups with the help of formally independent institutions. The above process is characterized by the fact that clear boundaries between such closed total institutions and non-institutional applications are blurring. The boundaries between the above-mentioned "honest citizens" and "deviants" (even criminals) are also blurring. It has been found that in modern conditions, society no longer exercises social control, but social control over society by the state and even private entities that have national or even transnational power.

The article concludes that in the Postmodern society, punishment and other forms of social control are devoid of traditional goals (including "correction" or "re-education" of deviants). Society ceases to be a subject of social control and becomes its object, exposed to net-widening processes, as a result of which the Posmodern society acquires the characteristics of a carceral society, where national social control systems (including total institutions) become more mobile and acquire qualitatively new forms, significance and significance.