MICHEL FOUCAULT

Michael Foucaults Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the

Prison (1977) is one of the most influential books in modern
penology. Taking as his backcloth the great transformation
from capital punishment to the timetabled regimes of the
penitentiaries and the technologies of power deployed within
them, Foucault rejected the liberal argument that the prison
was a form of humanitarian progress, claiming instead that
prisons
developed not to punish less; [but] to punish better, to insert the
power to punish more deeply into the social body (p. 82).
Although he did not reject the top-down Marxist approach of
penologists such as Rusche and Kirchheimer, Foucault used a
different analytical framework in order to understand how power
operates bot- tom up as a property of systems. He was interested
in how disciplinary power impacted on the human soul (the psyche)
at the micro level.

For Foucault, power is productive, dispersed throughout society and intimately rela

Pentru Foucault, puterea este productive, dispersata in intreaga societate si legata

Taking Benthams panopticon design and inspection principle

as his cue, Foucault argued that the wider application of such
technologies of power had created a modern carceral
society of disciplinary control. Hunt and Wickham (1994)
explain how, for Foucault, disciplinary power operates on
three levels:

1
2
3

Hierarchical observation Differentiated positions of power

that are rooted in surveillance, categorisation and classification.
Normalising judgements
norms and expected behaviour.

Dominant definitions, rules,

Micro penalties and rewards Means of regulation to ensure

conformity and obedience.

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Preluand proiectul panopticon al lui Bentam si principiul inspectiei ca

directive,Foucault a sustinut ca raspandirea extinsa a acestor
tehnologii ale puterii a creat societatea carcerala moderna a
controlului disciplinar. Hunt si Wickam explica cum, pentru Foucault,
puterea opereaza pet rei nivele:
1.observarea ierarhica- diferitele pozitii ale puterii sunt fixate in
supraveghere, clasificare si categorizare
2.normalizarea judecatilor definitii dominante, reguli, norme si
comportament asteptat
3. micro pedepse si recompense mijloace de regularizare folosite
pentru asigurarea conformitatii si ascultarii.
The prison was not the only means through which disciplinary
power operatedother places included the family, the school,
the barracks, the workplace and the hospitalbut it was at
the pinnacle of a carceral continuum.
Inchisoarea nu a fost singurul mijloc prin care puterea
disciplinara a operat, alte locuri fiind familia, scoala, cazarmile,
fabricile si spitalele, dar inchisoarea a fost apogeul
continuumului carceral.

It is not important that imprisonment is a failure in terms of recidivism. To justify w

Nu este important ca detentia este un esec in cee ace priveste

recidivismul. Pentru a justifica controlul disciplinar extins,
Foucault sustine ca inchisorile inventeaza in mod deliberat
delincventi. In acest sens, o stare de permanent conflict exista
pentru a motiva nevoia pentru o industrie de control a
criminalitatii si pentru a legitima controlul disciplinar mai
extins. Anumite ilegalitati sunt izolate si mai usor de
administrat, in timp ce infractorii sunt recalificati si
transformati in indivizi disciplinary, docile si productivi.
Foucault has been criticised for overgeneralising disciplinary
punish- ments used against juveniles to those used against
adults and for provid- ing only a partial analysis of
punishments that requires synthesis with one or more of the
earlier modernist total theories. His theory that punishment
operates through norms and techniques of rationality negates

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any consideration of wider cultural meanings, judgements and

understandings punishment has for people. He has also been
criticised on the bases that, like the Marxists, his analysis is
functionalist and masculinist, and his conception of power
simply a restatement of the basic sociological concept of
socialisation.

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