Poor Discipline

by Jonathan Simon

This powerful book reveals how modern strategies of punishment—and, by all accounts, their failure—relate to political and economic transformations in society at large. Jonathan Simon uses the practice of parole in California as a window to the changing historical understanding of what a corrections system does and how it works. Because California is representative of policies and practices on a national level, Simon explicitly presents his findings within a national framework.

When parole first emerged as a corrections strategy in the nineteenth century, work was supposed to keep ex-prisoners out of trouble. This strategy foundered in the changing economy after World War II. What followed was a rehabilitative strategy, where the clinical expertise of the parole agent replaced the discipline of the industrial labor market in defining and controlling criminal deviance. Today, Simon argues, as drastic changes in the economy have virtually locked out an entire class, rehabilitation has given way to mere management. The effect is isolation of the offender, either in jail or in an underclass community; the result is an escalating cycle of imprisonment, destabilization, and insecurity.

No significant improvement in the current penal crisis can be expected until we better understand the relationship between punishment and social order, a relationship which this book explores in theoretical, historical, and practical detail.

296 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 1993

About the author

I'm Jonathan Simon, author of CODE RED: Computerized Election Theft And The New American Century, co-founder and currently Executive Director of Election Defense Alliance (www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org), a nonprofit organization founded in 2006 to restore observable vote counting and electoral integrity as the foundation of American democracy.

I have expertise in polling and statistical analysis derived from my time as a political survey research analyst in Washington, DC. I've also authored, both individually and in collaboration, numerous papers related to various aspects of election integrity. I've been active in election integrity efforts since 2001, appearing in several election integrity-related films, as an interviewee on several dozen live programs, and tweeting @JonathanSimon14.

I'm a graduate of Harvard College ('78), New York University School of Law ('86), and New York Chiropractic College ('90). I am admitted to the Bar of Massachusetts, hold membership in the legal honor society Order of the Coif, and since 1993 have directed an interdisciplinary healthcare facility in Cambridge, Massachusetts.