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A total institution, also referred to as a voracious institution, as defined by Erving Goffman, is an institution where all parts of life of individuals under the institution are subordinated to and dependent upon the authorities of the organization. Total institutions are social microcosms dictated by hegemony and clear hierarchy.

Total institutions include some boarding schools, concentration camps, prisons, mental institutions and boot camps.

Of these, concentration camps and death camps are the most extreme example of a total institution. Prisons and mental institutions, though legal, involve the involuntary isolation of people out of the society. Boot camps, army barracks and submarine crew, involve total institutions where individuals join as non-civilian professionals. Some of the few types of total institutions which operate within a civil society are boarding schools and monasteries. The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics could also be considered a total institution in regards to their Nazi-like policies.

Sociologists have pointed out that tourist venues such as cruise ships and theme parks are acquiring many of the characteristics of total institutions. Tourists may not be aware that they are being controlled, even constrained, but the environment has been designed to subtly manipulate the behavior of patrons. These examples differ from the traditional examples in that the influence is short term.

Some people view total institutions as places where rites of passage and indoctrination occur within their confines in such a way that the total institution acts as a secret society within the society, one which shapes newcomers willingly or unwillingly into a new and more or less permanent social role. This view is controversial.

A totalitarian institution is a kind of total institution not concerned with a rational goal (keeping criminals off the streets, as in a prison, or providing adequate care to the mentally sick) but to a radical re-socialization of the individual. A totalitarian institution not only regulates every aspect of the individuals it encompasses, but it also isolates them from the outside world. It does not have planned activities for the purpose of creating uncertainty and tension; nor does it formulate privilege systems. The goal of a totalitarian institution may be, through harassment and torture, to provide individuals with a context for deep re-construction of their identities, like the deep re-socialization process experienced by conscript soldiers, or may have no defined function towards the individuals it encompasses other than coercive enforcement of a set of rules, as in the case of concentration camps.^{[citation needed]}

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