Attempts to radically alter the behavior of individuals have been notably unsuccessful and call for explanation. It is suggested that: (1) Radical change, as opposed to ordinary change, requires resocialization rather than ordinary socialization; (2) Resocialization requires an intervening process of desocialization, a process in which the efficacy of old values is erased; (3) Desocialization occurs when interpersonal relations disintegrate. Operant conditions of social disintegration, and hence desocialization, are described for prisons and other total institutions where staff-inmate conflict is an important system-maintenance device.