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bucketoffish 's review for:
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
by Michel Foucault
My understanding of Foucault's argument is that prison is an extension of methods of social control that permeate all of modern society. As opposed to old torture-based methods of punishment, modern law focuses not on affecting the body, but the "soul". The visual I get is of a series of power relations that constrain not so much where the body can move and act, but more so what the mind is able to think, or judge, or desire. Thus the soul itself is kept constrained. Modern punishment is meant to alter behavior in such a way that the soul is kept within acceptable bounds.
Foucault talks about the origins of these forms of control via the formations of modern militaries, factories, and schools. The need for efficiency, coherence, and standardization in modern modes of production led to the development of timetables, organizational hierarchies, examinations, and other forms of ensuring that individuals behaved according to acceptable standards. Detailed control of bodies in space and time, saying to be at a certain place at a certain time doing a certain action, became common in places like school, the workplace, hospitals etc. These systems were kept in place via hierarchical forms of surveillance and reporting, upheld by the people in the systems themselves. The prison is merely an extension of this control, where individuals who do not behave in acceptable ways are placed under heavy surveillance, where their actions are strictly regimented and enforced.
I think Foucault makes the point that all this is not really meant to help offenders, but rather to control their actions in a way that is acceptable to the upper and middle classes. He talks a bit about the difference in perception of a crime as an act to be punished, vs. a criminal or delinquent whose entire being and mode of behavior must be changed or managed.
This book had some interesting ideas but the writing style made it very tedious to read. Foucault sometimes made arguments about historical shifts in thought that I didn't think were really justified by his choice of quotations, and in any case were probably too specific to be generally true. The book as a whole was extremely verbose, and Foucault's choice of language was incredibly obscure in places. Overall it was not fun to read, and I started spacing out about a third of the way into the book. However, despite all that I still think the book is worthwhile.
Foucault talks about the origins of these forms of control via the formations of modern militaries, factories, and schools. The need for efficiency, coherence, and standardization in modern modes of production led to the development of timetables, organizational hierarchies, examinations, and other forms of ensuring that individuals behaved according to acceptable standards. Detailed control of bodies in space and time, saying to be at a certain place at a certain time doing a certain action, became common in places like school, the workplace, hospitals etc. These systems were kept in place via hierarchical forms of surveillance and reporting, upheld by the people in the systems themselves. The prison is merely an extension of this control, where individuals who do not behave in acceptable ways are placed under heavy surveillance, where their actions are strictly regimented and enforced.
I think Foucault makes the point that all this is not really meant to help offenders, but rather to control their actions in a way that is acceptable to the upper and middle classes. He talks a bit about the difference in perception of a crime as an act to be punished, vs. a criminal or delinquent whose entire being and mode of behavior must be changed or managed.
This book had some interesting ideas but the writing style made it very tedious to read. Foucault sometimes made arguments about historical shifts in thought that I didn't think were really justified by his choice of quotations, and in any case were probably too specific to be generally true. The book as a whole was extremely verbose, and Foucault's choice of language was incredibly obscure in places. Overall it was not fun to read, and I started spacing out about a third of the way into the book. However, despite all that I still think the book is worthwhile.