Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault

Feb 01, 2013 AC rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: foucault, postmodernism

NEW REVIEW [it took more than a few days to get back to this -- I hope someone reads it... lol]

I will add only a few additional comments to what I’ve already written (below and in the comments sections). It will be enough and more than enough.

I came at this book with decades of prejudice built-up – and it showed in my (essentially failed) reading of Madness and Civilization. I knew that Foucault was a fake and a charlatan before I ever cracked a page. So to speak…

So one can imagine my surprise a...more

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AC Nathan "N.R." wrote: "“I, too, am a recovering Foucault-hater.”

One day at a time.

Nathan "N.R." wrote: "But you don't need to be persuaded. You just ne...more
Feb 02, 2013 09:02am

Nathan "N.R." Gaddis AC wrote: " in postmodernist philosophy "

Just to be clear about my own intentions and positions, Zizek has caused in me a clear conversion against pos...more
Feb 02, 2013 09:23am

Apr 03, 2007 Conrad rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, pomo, masterpieces

In many ways a response to the French government's penal codes of the 60s and 70s but also a continuation of Foucault's work in Madness and Civilization, the influence of D&P can be seen everywhere from Spielberg's Minority Report to Enemy of the State to Ted Conover's Newjack and most if not all critiques of surveillant governments. It's also a horrifying read, starting out as it does with an account of the ritualistic execution of a regicide, which Foucault compares favorably to the prison...more

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Nov 10, 2007 Jessica marked it as owned-for-years-but-still-not-read Recommends it for: intellectuals who have done something bad

Shelves: crime-and-punishment

I started it. I didn't finish. And unless I one day find myself in a situation with extremely limited mobility and options, with a great deal of time (read: years) on my hands, it's conceivable that I never will.

I'd like to have read this book, since I'm very interested in the topics it addresses, but I don't know that I have the mind, stomach, or patience for Foucault. So while I'd like to have read it, I don't know that I'd like as much to read it, if you get what I'm saying. Well, maybe somed...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Pedro Caldas rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historia, favorites

Li “Vigar e Punir” pela segunda vez (para preparar uma disciplina em teoria da história), e, por isto, não fui surpreendido pela qualidade excepcional do livro. Mas isto não diminuiu, em nada, minha admiração pela obra.

“Vigiar e Punir” é, na minha opinião, um marco nas ciências humanas. Em primeiro lugar, porque, nele, Michel Foucault narra o nascimento da “alma moderna”. Neste sentido, que me perdoem marxistas e weberianos ortodoxos e fanáticos, atinge a altura de vários capítulos de “O Capita...more Li “Vigar e Punir” pela segunda vez (para preparar uma disciplina em teoria da história), e, por isto, não fui surpreendido pela qualidade excepcional do livro. Mas isto não diminuiu, em nada, minha admiração pela obra.

“Vigiar e Punir” é, na minha opinião, um marco nas ciências humanas. Em primeiro lugar, porque, nele, Michel Foucault narra o nascimento da “alma moderna”. Neste sentido, que me perdoem marxistas e weberianos ortodoxos e fanáticos, atinge a altura de vários capítulos de “O Capital” e da “Ética protestante e o espírito do capitalismo”. Aliás, se lidos em conjunto, temos três enfoques contrastantes do nascimento do homem moderno.

O corte de Foucault é bem preciso: ele disseca o surgimento de uma sociedade disciplinar, capaz de produzir corpos dóceis destinados à utilidade e ao trabalho (e, ainda permanecendo na comparação, vale a pena pensar como tanto Marx como Weber pensaram exatamente nos mesmos termos): “À expiação que tripudia sobre o corpo deve suceder um castigo que atue profundamente sobre o coração, o intelecto, a vontade, as disposições” (p.20-21)

A idade moderna começa com a eliminação da pena pelo suplício, da pena como reparação pelo dano causado. Tudo se torna bem mais complexo: o juiz, por exemplo, não julga mais sozinho: “Ao longo do processo penal, prolifera toda uma série de instâncias anexas. Pequenas justiças e juízos paralelos se multiplicaram em torno do julgamento principal: peritos psiquiátricos ou psicólogos, magistrados das aplicações das penas, educadores, funcionários da administração penitenciária fracionam o poder legal de punir; dir-se-á que nenhum deles partilha realmente do direito de julgar” (p.24). Essa passagem luminosa do início do livro não somente é empiricamente comprovada ao longo do livro (por vezes até em excesso, pois Foucault se repete demasiadamente), bem como dá o que pensar. Considero fundamental em Foucault a ideia de fracionamento do poder. Ou seja: a produção dos corpos dóceis não é fruto da intenção de um indivíduo ou classe.

Foucault, ao analisar no nascimento da alma moderna e da sociedade disciplinar, faz uma filosofia da história sem sujeito identificável, sem uma instância que possa reivindicar uma consciência de todo o processo. E isto é revolucionário.

Mais ainda: ao mostrar a emergência da sociedade disciplinar, Foucault cumpre aquela que considero a principal contribuição do historiador: desnaturalizar. Afinal, a forma como lidamos com o tempo é, se lermos atentamente “Vigiar e Punir”, uma introjeção da vigilância que tanto marca a cronometria de nossas vidas, nas quais nenhum instante pode ficar sem serventia – mesmo os de lazer.

É claro que nos perguntamos: se estamos dentro do panóptico, se já estamos dóceis, se somos engrenagens da sociedade disciplinar, como podemos sequer vê-la? Ou ainda: se conseguimos ao menos descrever a estrutura, como alterá-la, como mudar nossa forma de relação com o tempo e com o trabalho, por exemplo?

De toda forma, apesar da tender a se repetir, Foucault aplica com maestria aquilo que está teoricamente muito bem exposto em “A Arqueologia do Saber”. Sem dúvida alguma, Foucault é simultaneamente filósofo e historiador, pesquisador e homem com capacidade especulativa, capaz de hipóteses cuja ousadia não deixam a dever a figuras do porte de Weber e Marx. Notável. Imprescindível. Mesmo para quem não se declara “foucauldiano”, o que é precisamente o meu caso. (less)

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Aug 22, 2007 Cat rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: culturalhistory

I've read this book three times: First time was in undergraduate, second time was in law school, third time was last week. I can honestly say that my understanding of this work has grown with each reading, but that growth in comprehension has come more from my reading of other books either discussing or related to Discipline and Punish.
Specifically, I would recommend Jurgen Habermas's critique of Foucault, although I now forget which book of his contains his critique. I would also recommend Goff...more

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Jan 10, 2008 Lex rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: re-readable-classics, theory-gay-and-otherwise

This book rearranged my brain. I have never read something that met my intuition half way, and then expanded my vision beyond all critical capacities I knew before. I will never conceive of power, structures, knowledge, statistics, or my cock the same way again. His anti-humanitarian, empirical, and nonuniversal critiques that follow the money and the violence are the perfect medicine for people who have been reading saggy assed media studies and cultural studies for too long. Saved my life.

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Dec 02, 2012 dsneaks rated it 5 of 5 stars

I had to read this for a contemporary social theory course I was taking. I actually really enjoyed this book. It has to be one of my favorite Social theory books. It focuses on the different types of disciplines in a society that can be used, different types of punishment and tortures used in the past compared to recent times, and the panopticon. This is actually really interesting to read. Foucault gives examples of what he is talking about before he actually starts going into it. These example...more

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Aug 06, 2008 Aaron rated it 5 of 5 stars

i first trudged through this book when i was in high school. being 17, i realized that i wasn't really understanding what he was saying, but for the first time, felt like i was exposed to an analysis that transcended dominant thought in a way that i didnt know was possible. for the next 3 years i read a lot of foucault..his understanding of the co-productive nature of knowledge and power gave me tools to deconstruct our funny world and truths. not to be too corny, but this shit changed my life....more

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Oct 05, 2011 Aurochz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, favorites, post-structuralism-and-modernism, history

A nice overview of the procedures of law throughout a somewhat short span of western history. Not quite as good as MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION, but written and argued in the same way as that. The book was part of the major project of Foulcault's in showing that social institutions, especially those we don't associate with knowledge, are disseminators and power brokers of knowledge.

In this book he shows how even though we physically abuse and execute criminals less, we have used knowledge as a new...more A nice overview of the procedures of law throughout a somewhat short span of western history. Not quite as good as MADNESS AND CIVILIZATION, but written and argued in the same way as that. The book was part of the major project of Foulcault's in showing that social institutions, especially those we don't associate with knowledge, are disseminators and power brokers of knowledge.

In this book he shows how even though we physically abuse and execute criminals less, we have used knowledge as a new form of mental prison that destroys the "soul" of those incarcerated. The panopticon, proposed by Jeremy Bentham being both the culmination and beginning of the enlightenment semiotic view of how prisoners should be cataloged sorted and viewed as pieces of information to be viewed at all times in order to be rehabilitated. Pulling us into a militaristic nanny system that tries to control the life of the imprisoned as much as possible. He further and more importantly argues, that this view of the panopticon as an ideal institution has moved on to the rest of society and we all are involved in panoptic institutions that wish to control us beyond the means available to the traditional institutions they replaced, through information and a feeling of constant surveillance.

I can agree with most of the main thrust of his argument in this and his other works. I dislike the way he makes prisoners seem merely as misunderstood and as freedom loving. I realize he was trying to critique enlightenment views and he didn't hold this view as fervently as some of the people he was quoting, but some types of violent offenders commit serious crimes that should taken seriously. They effect real victims and they shouldn't be seen as part of a rubric system that wants to stop "freedom lovers."

That being my one and only caveat with the book. I still very much agree with the rest and enjoyed his writing and historical examples. Another masterpiece by Foucault, not his greatest, but still very much worth reading and taking stock of. (less)

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Sep 18, 2011 Bay rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fascinating! Foucault begins by discussing how punishment has changed over time from a corporal, physical punishment to a punishment that is targeted at souls. The disciplinary and penal system changes as the body was discovered as an object and target of power. In the early 17th century, bodies were punished as an affirmation of the sovereign’s power. When a crime was committed, the offender was in essence “attack[ing] the very principle and physical person of the prince” (54). The king would t...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Derek Baldwin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Foucault's greatest work, in my opinion, and certainly one of the more accessible.

The book begins with an extraordinary account of a regicide's slow and painful torturing to death. This is a visitation upon the body of the wrongdoer, says Foucault, of the sovereign's power, and typical of its time. But we have very gradually moved from this very overt and vengeful and direct form of the exercise of power to a far more subtle "disciplinary power".

In modern societies, he says, we mount surveillan...more

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Jan 10, 2011 Ally de Padua rated it 5 of 5 stars

Foucault for Historians, Foucault as Historian

"It’s true that I prefer not to identify myself, and I’m amused by the diversity of the ways I’ve been judged and classified. Something tells me that by now a more or less approximate place should have been found for me, after so many efforts in such various directions…I have to be convinced that their inability to situate me has something to do with me."

Michel Foucault, Interview with Paul Rabinow

Discipline and Punish is difficult when considered as...more Foucault for Historians, Foucault as Historian

"It’s true that I prefer not to identify myself, and I’m amused by the diversity of the ways I’ve been judged and classified. Something tells me that by now a more or less approximate place should have been found for me, after so many efforts in such various directions…I have to be convinced that their inability to situate me has something to do with me."

Michel Foucault, Interview with Paul Rabinow

Discipline and Punish is difficult when considered as a historical work. While reading it, the historian-by-training feels a certain sense of self-consciousness, a realization that Foucault’s method of analysis has somehow left the inner workings of our discipline exposed. A “historian of a sort,” conspicuously absent from Foucault’s work is the hallmark of modern historical writing—the external dialogue. For most modern historians, their work is meant as a response, a continuation of a disputation between peers. The bibliography of a work of “legitimate” scholastic history is normally a list of scholars, those whose ideas have inspired our own. The bibliography of Discipline and Punish is the first place one could look and find the disparity between his historical task and ours. With the exception of fewer than twenty-five texts (for a 309 page work), his bibliography is dominated by primary sources hailing from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. Discipline and Punish was written outside of the dialogue of historians, and what’s more, the distance he keeps is intentional. In The Use of Pleasure Foucault writes:

"The studies that follow, like the others I have done previously, are studies of ‘history’ by reason of the domain they deal with… but they are not the work of a ‘historian.’ Which does not mean that they summarize and synthesize work done by others…It was a philosophical enterprise."

Simply put, Foucault is not interested in the questions that the historians have traditionally been asking.

A hallmark of what Thomas Flynn considers Foucault’s “post-modern” historical thinking is an avoidance of the traditional questions of “causation,” of the discussions of influence, of the chronological stringing of events. Thus the bewilderment we feel as we follow his trajectory in Discipline and Punish is the historian’s bewilderment at how he uses his massive archival erudition, or rather, how he refuses to use it. His use of the archival texts is illustrative, rather than deeply analytical—he does not search them for eternal meanings, or universal structures—questions of facticity, of causation, of “what the texts are really saying” are not his concern. His history is tactical, not based on the uncovering of a grand narrative, but rather an uncovering a multiplication of events in their contingency and plurality.

The study of History is a Discipline, in the manner that Foucault describes Discipline as a power whose function it is to “train, rather than to select and levy…it separates, analyses, differentiates, carries its procedures of decomposition to the point of necessary and sufficient single units.” It is power articulated onto time, a discipline aimed at knowing the past by “uncovering” linear evolutions, or coherency within it. The very questions that most historians ask of the past, of its documents and of its remnants reveal our underlying presupposition of the possibility of uncovering facticity, of being able to separate what is history from what is fiction. The discipline of History is a system that works towards the goal of uncovering what can be objectively known about the past, and this goal directs our discourse.

What insight has Discipline and Punish given us about the meaning of the term “Foucauldian analysis”? Running the risk of oversimplification or generalization, I would suggest that one begin with the recognition that there really is no fact, no objective history that exists outside of the subjective experience. The question of separating what can be objectively known from what has been subjectively recorded is not as important as asking why a document is written. The question is not necessarily if what was written is objectively “true” or more or less reflective of past reality, but instead what goals their writing reflected. Foucault’s “history,” if it must be labeled as such, ultimately feels like a history of “thoughts”—a genealogy of the present rather than a narrative of the past.
What we gain from Discipline and Punish, and Foucault’s tactical approach to history in general is the realization that the past and the present, if they are realities, are realities that only exist in multiplicities—on chance and the diversity of “events,” rather than unification and chronological trajectory. An examination of Foucault’s sources for Discipline and Punish reveals that a majority were the writings of eighteenth and nineteenth century ideologues, jurists, and theoreticians, men whose plans and theories for the penal institution may or may not have been overtly successful in achieving their intended goals, whose ideas may or may not have even been put into practice. Every trail of thought, even unrealized holds a space in history as significant as that of a reign, a battle, or an explosion. Everything can be an event.
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Oct 15, 2010 The Awdude rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book marks Foucault's transition from an archaeological posture to a genealogical one, a theoretical shift which allows him to begin theorizing about the frighteningly inescapable dynamics of power. The writing is beautiful, haunting, and poetic in all the right ways, and the aesthetic grace with which he deploys his ideas almost eclipses the terrifying implications of their content. But not quite. There is no escaping the Panopticon of power! The technology of discipline and the diffuse me...more This book marks Foucault's transition from an archaeological posture to a genealogical one, a theoretical shift which allows him to begin theorizing about the frighteningly inescapable dynamics of power. The writing is beautiful, haunting, and poetic in all the right ways, and the aesthetic grace with which he deploys his ideas almost eclipses the terrifying implications of their content. But not quite. There is no escaping the Panopticon of power! The technology of discipline and the diffuse mechanisms of punishment are hard at work in every minute detail of our lives, and their overall effects on society is what ultimately constitutes the paradox of the modern episteme: subjectivity presupposes subjection. Legality presupposes illegality; incarceration invents and encourages delinquency; morality constitutes criminality and visa-versa. And man, at the end of the day, constitutes an object of knowledge that remains in perpetual opposition to man as a subject of transcendence. He has invented himself in order to develop a taxonomy of himself. His self-invention constitutes the moment in which he begins a long process of trying to hide from himself the fact that he does not exist. The discipline of the body is one mechanism of this process; as the invented signifier of the soul, which according to Foucault is the modern arm of power, the body bears the marks of the failure of the self-disguise. We multiply apparatuses of subjection but get no closer to, and probably even retreat from, the desired state of subjectivity. Which is similar to the lesson you might take from the show The Wire. We're all playing our roles in the game of subjection; the more we invest in morality, the more we invest in immorality. Neither of which exist, of course. Power, according to Foucault, is pretty much the only thing that actually exists. Discipline and Punish is a brilliant exploration of power, and it demonstrates all the ways in which we can be certain that contemporary power in human society is much stronger, much more varied in form, and much, much more widely distributed than it ever has been. The greatest trick power ever pulled was convincing the world it didn't exist. Read this book and see. (less)

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Jan 07, 2010 Bradley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow, just wow. My dissertation advisor told me that Foucault worked 18-20 hours a day, 7 days a week to write this text. I can see all of the hard work paid dividends! All through the first few sections the groundwork is being laid down. In it Foucault outlines the transition from sovereign power to disciplinary power; or what Marxists call Formal subsumption (coercion of the proletariat by use of overt force) to the final stage of capitalism called Real Subsumption (the ideological superstructu...more Wow, just wow. My dissertation advisor told me that Foucault worked 18-20 hours a day, 7 days a week to write this text. I can see all of the hard work paid dividends! All through the first few sections the groundwork is being laid down. In it Foucault outlines the transition from sovereign power to disciplinary power; or what Marxists call Formal subsumption (coercion of the proletariat by use of overt force) to the final stage of capitalism called Real Subsumption (the ideological superstructure is sufficiently complex that it takes care of all potential insurgencies through pure discourse and weight of law).

Foucault shows how the penal codes gradually became evermore complicated to meet the needs of a capitalizing West; hence new juridical institutions and laws were written to handle "theft," and "corrupt business transactions," and other newer crimes dealing with the appropriation of property. Also, he notes that criminology was invented during this period, in the late 18th century, creating a "Labyrinth" of legalistic jargon that made the practice of law possible only by professionals. Hence, as the legal superstructure began to become more complex, so did the different types of "Crimes," that the state needed to protect "us" against.

Hence, the invention of the infamous Panopticon had to come about because the capitalization of the West could only happen through the procurement of Healthy, productive, "Docile Bodies," to work in factories. Disciplinarity began to subsume all aspects of the Modernizing, capitalizing society... and I began to wonder at this point, "How effective is this new disciplinary power?" And then Foucault answered my concerns by showing how the excesses of disciplinarity created the conditions of possibility for resistance. This is what Foucault calls a "Physics of Power," which basically means - for every action there is always an opposite and equal reaction- therefore, when power becomes excessive, there is a bounce-back effect leading to a multiplication of resistances, subversions, and even carnivalesque overturnings of the status quo. Yet, all of this resistance is effectively kept to the margins of society. Alas, we are all slaves to an invisible master. What a bummer. (less)

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Mar 10, 2013 Tom Barrington added it · review of another edition

In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault begins his text with two contrasting and seemingly disconnected historical scenes: the horrific execution of Damiens who was condemned for regicide in 1757 followed by a time table of rules designed by Léon Faucher for a house of young offenders in Paris, written eighty years later in the nineteenth century. In a typically stylistic manner, reminiscent of the striking historical examples of the ‘Ship of Fools’ or the chain gangs in Madness and Civilisati...more In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault begins his text with two contrasting and seemingly disconnected historical scenes: the horrific execution of Damiens who was condemned for regicide in 1757 followed by a time table of rules designed by Léon Faucher for a house of young offenders in Paris, written eighty years later in the nineteenth century. In a typically stylistic manner, reminiscent of the striking historical examples of the ‘Ship of Fools’ or the chain gangs in Madness and Civilisation, Foucault draws on eye witness accounts of the execution of Damiens to portray a vivid, and striking account of the effects of public torture and execution on a poor victim. The scene portrayed is one of violent chaos and passion, initially shown through the brutal physical torture of Damiens as the executioners in order to quarter the victim with pulling horses, ‘were forced...to sever the sinews and hack at the joints’ of his legs. Bizarrely, the victim is interacted with and speaks throughout the process of his public execution, ‘Several confessors went up to him and spoke to him at length; he willingly kissed the crucifix that was held out to him; he opened his lips and repeated: “Pardon, Lord.”’ In stark contrast to these moving scenes, Foucault presents a sober proposed timetable for young prisoners in Paris. The young men are not punished in any visceral way, but ordered to pray and perform prescribed work throughout the day, finishing in the evening, ‘The cell doors are closed and the supervisors go the rounds in the corridors, to ensure order and silence.’ Eighty years later, those who are being punished are no longer in conversation with the public or even allowed to speak; they forgo the extreme pain and torture but are deprived of any voice or agency in their punishment. In a New York Times review, David Rothman locates Foucault as a thinker who ‘constructs his arguments not by mapping precise lines of influence from one institution to another but by defining broad similarities of approach.’ This accurately summarises Foucault’s approach in this text; by contrasting these two seemingly different scenes of punishment, Foucault astutely sets the template for his novel and foreshadows the trajectory of his structural analysis of the penal and disciplinary systems that he engages with in his work. Foucault, through a use of historical sources and examples, details the movement away from the passionate and public scenes of execution detailed in Damiens’ account to the silent and privatised punishment of men in the nineteenth century. Throughout this review, I will attempt to navigate through Foucault’s arguments using the concept of the individual and the effects the disciplinary and penal systems had on them through the changing mechanisms of power involved in Discipline and Punish.

In the first section of the text, Foucault focuses on the pre-modern practise of publically executing and torturing those who had broken the law. Foucault argues that the practise of public execution was grounded in the Christian ideals of the confession of truth and the concept of the ordeal, and explains that through its physical visage, ‘The body...provides the synthesis of the reality of the deeds and the truth of the investigation’ . As well as being a juridicial entity, the physical body at the site of the public execution also was a political entity in Foucault’s view, as it was the site of the sovereign’s retaliation against a challenge to their rule, ‘It is a ceremonial by which a momentarily injured sovereignty is reconstituted.’ The body becomes the site where the monarch or ruler, affronted by the criminal undermining them, visibly takes their punishment against the individual and warns those who are watching of the consequences. The flaw with this, as Foucault details, is that the execution or torture in the public sphere created a situation where, ‘The solidarity of a whole selection of the population with those we would call petty offenders...was constantly expressed.’ Due to the performative nature and the individuality of having one man publically tried, the public formed an aspect of heroism around the performative aspect of the individual on the scaffold. For Foucault, this signalled the change from the public execution to the internal disciplinary system, as he writes, ‘It was the breaking up of this solidarity that was becoming the aim of penal and police repression.’ The breaking up of individual solidarity becomes a theme with which Foucault runs through his discussion of the disciplinary society and the penal system throughout the rest of the text.

The attempt to break up this solidarity led to the system of punishment being imbedded within society, and Foucault argues that penal punishment shifted from a specific physical locus on the individual to a general function, ‘Penal punishment is therefore a generalized function, coextensive with the function of the social body and with each of its elements.’ Foucault here shows the shift of solidarity and how it was effectively broken up; the criminal who errs against the law becomes something outside of or alien to society, and becomes reincorporated into society through the penal system. Foucault also argues that the punished criminal ceased to be the manifestation of the power of the sovereign, ‘now he will be rather the property of society, the object of a collective and useful appropriation.’ This shift is crucial for Foucault as the punished individual ceases to be a pariah of society, despite the elements of glorification associated with it, and becomes incorporated back into society through power mechanisms of disciplinary institutions like the Parisian house of correction detailed at the start. Through disciplinary institutions such as the barracks, the school and the factory, Foucault argues that society created coercion on the individual’s body, ‘The classical age discovered the body as object and target for power.’ The disciplinary society which exercised power over the individual created what Foucault termed ‘docile’ bodies by subjecting it to coercion, ‘The human body was entering a machinery of power that explores it, breaks it down and rearranges it.’ Foucault goes on to detail carefully the ways in which disciplinary mechanisms such as the school were established to reinforce power over the individual, and subject them to machine like deference through constructs such as architectural space and disciplinary time. Using these theories and structures, Foucault uses the conceptual model of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon to explain to the reader that the modes of power established in the disciplinary mechanisms were transferred to the penal system.

Foucault defines the major effect of the Panopticon to be, ‘to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.’ The constant surveillance and gathering of information about the inmate creates power and control over the individual, as they cannot act autonomously without being surveyed and judged. In his typical style, Foucault brings in the Panopticon as a conceptual model which breaks open the structures of the penal society through historical and theoretical analysis. The Panopticon was a concept drawn up by Bentham, but Foucault urges the reader that ‘the Panopticon must not be understood as a dream building’, instead it should be perceived as ‘the mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form...whenever one is dealing with a multiplicity of individuals on whom a task or a particular form of behaviour must be imposed, the panoptic schema may be used.’ The Panopticon provides a model for Foucault for all forms of society when the behaviour of the individual is made to conform to a normal mode or discipline, and therefore is essential in his analysis. The Panopticon represents the all encompassing urge by power mechanisms to gather knowledge about an individual, and to normalize through a regime of power. This urge is best demonstrated in Foucault’s analysis of delinquency in the latter stages of the text. The nineteenth century penal system focused on the individual not in a physical sense but in a manifestly metaphysical sense, as Foucault argues that one of the aims of the prison was a deprivation of liberty- liberty being of paramount importance in the era of the Enlightenment. From this concept, the penitentiary became the main form of punishment which led to the transformation of the individual from an offender to a ‘delinquent’. Foucault argues that the delinquent is created by the penitentiary system due to its Panoptic structure constantly surveying and gathering knowledge about the individual, ‘it is not so much his [the delinquent’s] act as his life that is relevant in characterizing him.’ The biography of an individual offender, which becomes part of the knowledge of the penitentiary, serves to define him. Foucault argues that instead of tackling the problem of delinquency and illegality, the prison in fact by its very mechanisms of power ‘reinforce[s] delinquency.’ The controlled form of delinquency produced by the prison, Foucault argues, creates a manageable and docile form of illegality which can be controlled by the penal system.

Although the novel is presented as an overview of the structural genealogy of the penal and disciplinary systems, the conclusion of the text contained in the last chapter ‘The Carceral’ offers Foucault’s understated political message, a message which stems from his ultra-leftist phase and rails against what he perceives as ‘normalization’ created by the ‘carceral’ system. The carceral system is Foucault’s term for the practices of the penal system which have manifested themselves and permeated through the social body or society, ‘the prison has transformed the punitive procedure into a penitentiary technique; the carceral archipelago transported this technique from the penal institution to the entire social body.’ To paraphrase the complex arguments of ‘The Carceral’, Foucault argues that the carceral system produces an ever judging society through exhaustive information about the individual , from which there is no outside, which constantly strives towards an goal of homogeneity or normalization, ‘The carceral network...has been the greatest support, in modern society, of the normalizing power.’ For Foucault, this effort towards normalization is the particularly troubling aspect of the penal system, as he outlines in the final paragraphs of his text where he begins to manifestly criticise the practices of the system, ‘the formation of insidious leniencies, unavowable petty cruelties, small acts of cunning, calculated methods, techniques, ‘sciences’ that permit the fabrication of the disciplinary individual. In this central and centralized humanity...we must hear the roar of human battle.’ The adjectives Foucault employs here betray his contempt for the carceral system, as he describes ‘insidious’ ‘unavowable’ and ‘cunning’ practices used by the system to manipulate the individual, an disciplinary individual which Foucault concludes is ‘fabricated’ by the power structure of the system. I think that Foucault’s final claim, that we must hear the roar of human battle, is somewhat of a limp attempt to appear revolutionary at the end of his work. Throughout the text, Foucault didn’t attempt a polemic but constructed a complex structural analysis of the penal and disciplinary system and its effect on the individual, and in my opinion this last comment almost seems to undermine the structure of the text. Foucault is often criticised for not offering solutions the problematic aspects of society that he illuminates, which I think is often an unnecessary criticism, however with this brief political statement Foucault suggests a revolutionary battle cry for the liberation of the individual, a cry which is never manifest in the rest of his text and therefore this statement adds a certain amount of credence to the criticism of offering no solutions to social problems.

Foucault, as he often proved to be throughout his work, offers arguments and theories which in a strangely prophetic way apply pertinently to our contemporary society. Although he is not offering any solutions, Foucault through his discussion of panoptic surveillance and normalization foreshadows the current issue of privacy on the internet. Almost anyone who uses the internet is required to input personal information, adding to the wealth of knowledge about the individual, echoing the comprehensive case history of the delinquent outlined by Foucault in Discipline and Punish. Institutions use this information usually for innocuous purposes such as targeted advertising but it can also be used as a method of power or control, for example potential employers rejecting potential employees through an examination of their Facebook page which doesn’t conform to the social norms established by the workplace. Taking his arguments in this way Foucault’s Discipline and Punish in my opinion succeeds as a text which opens the reader’s eyes to the somewhat seditious mechanisms of power that exist in society.
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Nov 12, 2012 Melissa Engberg rated it 5 of 5 stars

Probably the best thing for anyone looking for a basic introduction to Foucault to read. A friend of mine teaches this book, and told me to write a long review! Not likely...
Also a good book to read if you want a super graphic description of what happens to those who attempt to commit regicide. Eep.
Basically, Foucault discusses the shift from legal punishments that are expressed on the physical body, and that are a representation of one's submitting to the sovereign, to a system in which punishm...more

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Apr 18, 2012 JD rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to JD by: Diane

This book was the hardest book I've ever read. Generally I'll go through a 300 page book in two days - this one took me about a month. Perhaps its the style of the author, or something to do with the translation from French, but it was very difficult for me to finish it. Many times I found myself reaching the end of a page and realizing that I hadn't been able to concentrate on it so my mind had wandered and I hadn't actually taken anything in, so I'd have to start the page over, and then it wou...more This book was the hardest book I've ever read. Generally I'll go through a 300 page book in two days - this one took me about a month. Perhaps its the style of the author, or something to do with the translation from French, but it was very difficult for me to finish it. Many times I found myself reaching the end of a page and realizing that I hadn't been able to concentrate on it so my mind had wandered and I hadn't actually taken anything in, so I'd have to start the page over, and then it would happen again on the same page. This added about 50 pages to the total length of the book.

I'd have liked more about what purpose prison serves for society, and why it's better/worse than other alternatives. The book starts with discussion about executions and other physical punishment, and seems to move suddenly to discussion of prisons with no real information given about why the change happened. The idea that prisons were not created for primarily any humanitarian reasons, but because the clash between the sovereign's power and the people during the spectacle of an execution could turn violent is an interesting idea, and one I'd never thought of before, but its not properly explained how that led to the creation and proliferation of prisons. My main interest in this book was an opportunity to learn about the history of prisons, and why prisons exist. I don't feel like I learned those things, and I felt misled by the subtitle "The Birth of the Prison." If anybody knows of any other books which discuss the history of punishment, why we have prisons, what could exist instead of prison, etc. I'd love for you to leave a comment so I can check them out.

The Panopticon section was my favorite; I've been interested in the Panopticon prison design since I first read about it years ago. However, since I already feel irrationally paranoid about authority, I wasn't stirred further by the idea that we're being watched (or are we? o_o) from the outside and watching ourselves internally as well. The information about schools, hospitals, and workplaces developing things in common with prisons and panopticism was interesting and will probably ring true for anyone who has ever gone to school or work, but I've read similar things written in a more interesting way in John Taylor Gatto's books which have more of a focus on education, so there was nothing new for me. Mr. Gatto's books have no bibliography to back them up, while Discipline & Punish seems painstakingly researched; in fact I've probably never seen a book with a larger bibliography. However, I'm not a researcher myself, so a large bibliography doesn't compare with engaging writing.

I did get some useful and interesting information from this book, and it made me see a few things from a new perspective, but everything I gained was only through toil and slog. At first I felt like some uncultured Philistine because of the five star reviews saying how fantastic the book is, and because it was personally recommended by a friend who enjoyed it, but I did feel somewhat vindicated when I found that Pluto Press published a 200 page book titled How to Read Foucalt's Discipline and Punish . (less)

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Diane Hey JD - Yeah, I ought to have recommended Foucault with a caveat about his writing style, which is obtuse, for sure. His take is more philosophical t...more
Apr 19, 2012 06:41am

Jorge Luis JD,

THE OXFORD HISTORY OF THE PRISON
The Practice of Punishment in Western Society
Edited by
Norval Morris and David J. Rothman
New York Oxford
Oxford Univ...more
Jul 15, 2012 11:26am

JD Thank you very much, Jorge. That book looks like exactly what I wanted. :)

Jorge wrote: "JD,

THE OXFORD HISTORY OF THE PRISON
The Practice of Punishment...more
Jul 15, 2012 01:21pm

Nov 06, 2011 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars

Foucault is fascinating not only for his ideas but also for his meticulous historiography. His goal is to write a history of the present (i.e., trace the historical relationships that led to our current construction and understanding of society).

In Discipline and Punish, Foucault demonstrates how institutions represent modern society's power-knowledge over the individual. For Foucault, power-knowledge is the tool institutions use to govern our lives; they do this by creating knowledge of people...more

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Mar 21, 2012 Jake rated it 3 of 5 stars

To be honest, this was the hardest book I've ever gotten through. This, however, isn't saying much as I don't tend to read books on social theory. Foucault is, to my taste, an overly-wordy, arrogant, intellectual. He seems to love to use words that he makes up mid-text with little or no explanation other than the context (i.e. panopticism). Though, I have to hand it to the guy, his theories, rarely backed by anything but his own pompous presuppositions, carry fundamental truths. After reading th...more

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Sep 03, 2011 Salma marked it as to-read · review of another edition

أشعر بالغيظ، فقد قلبت مكتبتي مرتين و أنا أبحث عنه عبثا، أذكر أني خبأته في مكان ما... و لكني نسيت أين خبأته... فقط لحسن الحظ أني لم أخبئ معه نقودي و إلا كانت ضاعت هي الأخرى معه... و لكني طمأنت نفسي بأنه ربما من حسن الحظ أكثر أن ليس لدي نقود تستحق أن أخبئها فأنسى أين وضعتها هي الأخرى فتضيع علي
راودتني نفسي بقراءة النسخة الالكترونية
و لكني تراجعت عنها لأني كنت سأشعر بالغيظ مرتين من نفسي لأني سأكون أضعته مرتين حينها، مرة حين خبأته و مرة حين اشتريت النسخة الورقية عبثا و لم أقرأها... حسنا سأحاول البحث م...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Pierre E. Loignon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: histoire, philosophie, politique, sociologie

La description de l’exécution du régicide Damiens, tirée de la Gazette d’Amsterdam du 1e avril 1757, donne le ton à ce livre, où Foucault entremêle au fil exigeant de sa pensée précise et brillante des images frappantes trouvées ici et là au cours des siècles.
Comme souvent chez Foucault, le titre est trompeur. Alors qu’on pourrait s’imagier que le sujet principal semble être les systèmes de contrôle normatif des populations, il s’agit avant tout d’exposer, en survolant l’évolution des milieux ca...more

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Mar 20, 2010 Siria rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: french-history, history, nonfiction, historiography

When I finished reading this book, I broke out a tub of Ben and Jerry's Half Baked—chocolate and vanilla frozen yoghurt with brownie and cookie dough chunks seemed the only suitable reward after 300+ pages of Foucault's prose. Whether or not its his writing style or an effect of the translation, Discipline and Punish is a dense and at times frustratingly opaque book. That, coupled with Foucault's fondness for using minuscule, ahistorical details to justify large-scale abstractions, made this a v...more

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Mar 28, 2013 McKenzie rated it 4 of 5 stars

It is difficult to separate the difficulty of reading Foucault's Discipline and Punish from the simultaneous brilliance and horror of his theories. In this book, he outlines how Western society moved from physically punishing the bodies of criminals, to using disciplinary tactics to punish (and supposedly reform) the minds of criminals. This transition had lasting effects on all of society, as the same logic was applied to schools, hospitals, and even workplaces - isolate individuals, supervise...more

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Sep 16, 2011 Ruhat alp rated it 5 of 5 stars

devletin, suçlulara, aykırılara, delilere, düzene uymayanlara ve günümüz moda terimiyle ‘teröristlere’ ihtiyacı var...

Historically, the process by which the bourgeoisie became in the course of the eighteenth century the politically dominant class was masked by the establishment of an explicit, coded and formally egalitarian juridical framework, made possible by the organization of a parliamentary, representative regime. But the development and generalization of disciplinary mechanisms constitute...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Sam Dembling rated it 5 of 5 stars

I had begun the book with the idea that it would be straight ahead philosophy, but it proved to be much more historical, recounting the transition from public tortures to mental institutions, from punishing the individual to rectifying his/her behavior, and other similar transitions. Throughout, Foucault avoids bold faced opinions, opting instead to blend his less charged ones with various quotes. As someone pointed out to me before I began reading it, Foucault points out problems well, but neve...more

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Jul 24, 2010 Blayze Hembree rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: theory

thrown as we are into an age where prisons are overflowing and law is one of the more competitive vocational fields for graduates, it's hard to imagine that the prison is a relatively recent construction. foucault instructs that a historical process exists individualizing and internalizing punishment since its more naturalistic beginnings in torture. we might normally associate torture with a punishment on the soul, but foucault goes to show that the invention of the prison (although he uncertai...more

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Aug 15, 2009 Leila T. rated it 3 of 5 stars

God, Foucault is so intense. I read this at university, and now that I think of it, I probably didn't end up reading the whole thing. I really do appreciate reading Foucault itself, not an interpretation of his stuff, but it's very long and dense and requires a level of concentration that most of my life does not demand; I am therefore unpracticed and inept.

The point of this review is that even if you read just a few chapters of this, it will be intellectually edifying. And I mean it will be mi...more

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Jan 06, 2010 Justin Mitchell rated it 3 of 5 stars

Every time I read Foucault, I leave asking myself "What am I supposed to do with this?"

My main issue is that I feel everything Foucault comes up with is ridiculously obvious. Of COURSE power is the basis for all our social interactions. It's not a mind-blowing point. Of course public executions are demonstrations of power over crime. Of course the disciplinary systems of the prison, the rehabilitation concept, etc., are all rooted in power. It doesn't challenge anything to say that. If I write a...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: theory, queer

Like most of Foucault's classic work, Discipline and Punish is about how power impinges on bodies. His great achievement in this book is to induce readers to reconsider what both bodies and power could mean-- what the words themselves refer to, how those categories have acted in the readers' own lives and in history, how their own bodies have come under various powers' sway. As an intervention in certain French intellectual and political debates, it made much more of an impact than Foucault hims...more Like most of Foucault's classic work, Discipline and Punish is about how power impinges on bodies. His great achievement in this book is to induce readers to reconsider what both bodies and power could mean-- what the words themselves refer to, how those categories have acted in the readers' own lives and in history, how their own bodies have come under various powers' sway. As an intervention in certain French intellectual and political debates, it made much more of an impact than Foucault himself expected. As a work of contemporary philosophy, it made his academic career. Most remarkable of all, as a marriage of rhetoric and critical thought, it is a flat-out masterpiece. I can think of no achievement comparable since Kierkegaard.

The story here, about how French modernity came into being on the bodies of criminals, is fascinating and indelibly told. It seems Foucault got many of his facts wrong; indeed, I'm not sure his points are even falsifiable, much less verifiable. That is hardly the point. The details do matter, however, because they lend this book most of its considerable moral force. Even at its most ironic (and Foucault, a classic interpreter of Nietzsche, is a grand ironist) the human cost of torture, incarceration, and surveillance is always before the reader's conscience. Tellingly, when critics fault Foucault's handling of the past, they sometimes do it to fault his theoretical conclusions, but not the ethical force that drives them.

Let me return to this book's writing. It is much more accessible, I think, than even Foucault's other work, and much more so than most of the classics of Theory. If you are curious about Foucault, this is definitely the place to begin. It is not a point-by-point argument with all terms safely defined: What, you thought this was C. S. Lewis? But its writing will tend to pull you into Foucault's own thought processes, which you may find cropping up inside your own as you keep reading. The French, let me add, is even better, limpid and direct. I highly recommend it if you have the means.

We do have some of Foucault's lecture notes now, which is a gift. As an example of his written pedagogy, I find this even better. This book will teach you new and unsettling ways to think. I can't sell you on that, but I can urge you to give it a try and see how it fits. Few who try are wholly disappointed.(less)

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Jun 02, 2012 Monte rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had to read this for a Philosophy course in College and while it is written in a complex grammatical-error form, it does provide insight as to development of the system we know today as Prison. Don't forget that this is not regarding jails at all, as jails are for those waiting trial. Prison is for those convicted of the crime. Focault only focuses on the criminally accused and convicted and their treatment in prison. The discipline is not something I agree with as any man, poor or rich, white...more

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