Discipline and Punish: a History of the Emergence of Generalised Regime of Disciplinary Regulation - Essay Example

Rough Paper: Compilation of all Necessary Ideas Outline for the Paper: I. Introduction II. Evolution of Punishment 17th to 18th century punishment system – enslavement of body 2. Modern Day punishment system – enslavement of soul III. Influence and Control: The Case of Panopticon 1. Visibility as dominant concept 2. Widening influence of prison system: education, government, and other social systems IV. The construction of power: Dominance of the Elites V. Conclusion A. Fisher, n.d. 1. Foucault claims that progress from a humanist perspective in relation to Modern discipline and punishment would not be accurate but, progress in being able to perform punishment with the same intensity of the Classical Age and not get the negative reaction that people had towards the public torture is a more accurate picture 2. Foucault claims that Modern societies aim has been "not to punish less, but to punish better." The best model of "punishing better" has taken place in the Modern Prison 3. Foucault defines some of those differences in Modern discipline practices that culminate in the prison, but are unlimited in their reach upon society 4. Power and control today: These ‘general politics’ and ‘regimes of truth’ are the result of scientific discourse and institutions, and are reinforced (and redefined) constantly through the education system, the media, and the flux of political and economic ideologies 5. A key point about Foucault’s approach to power is that it transcends politics and sees power as an everyday, socialised and embodied phenomenon. Foucault was fascinated by the mechanisms of prison surveillance, school discipline, systems for the administration and control of populations, and the promotion of norms about bodily conduct, including sex. 6. Foucault is pro-change: To challenge power is not a matter of seeking some ‘absolute truth’ (which is in any case a socially produced power), but ‘of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic, and cultural, within which it operates at the present time’ B. King, 2002 – NOT SURE 1. Disappearance of punishment as spectacle 2. It is the certainty of being punished and not the horrifying spectacle of public punishment that must discourage crime; 3. Public spectacle turned the tables, enveloping the executioner, judge, and other associated parties in shame and often the subject of the publics violence.  The change from punishment as public spectacle saw the offender unequivocally marked with the negative sign; the publicity shifted to the trial and justice dissociated itself from execution, trusting autonomous others to do the job (9-10). 4. New TORTURE: The body now serves as an instrument or intermediary: if one intervenes upon it to imprison it, or to make it work, it is in order to deprive the individual of a liberty that is regarded both as a right and as property" (11).  5. CONTROLLING HUMAN BEHAVIOR By solemnly inscribing offences in the field of objects susceptible of scientific knowledge, they provide the mechanisms of legal punishment with a justifiable hold not only on offences, but on individuals; not only on what they do, but also on what they are, will be, may be" (18). C. Zakariya, 1995 1. Discipline and Punish is, as advertised, a genealogy of the prison system 2. But to produce this genealogy, and to understand the meaning and pervasiveness of the prison system, Foucault addresses the establishment of the disciplinary society as a whole: the modes in which it organizes populations, their relation to power formations, and the corresponding conceptions of the human subject, with the social and political arena in which that subject is concomitantly formed.   3. How modern penal system is same to older system: Broadly speaking, one might say that, in monarchical law, punishment is a ceremonial of sovereignty; it uses ritual marks of the vengeance that it applies to the body of the condemned man; and it deploys before the eyes of the spectators an effect of terror as intense as it is discontinuous, irregular and always above its own laws, the physical presence of the sovereign and of his power.  The reforming jurists, on the other hand, saw punishment as a procedure for requalifying individuals as subjects; it uses not marks, but signs, coded sets of representations, which would be given the most rapid circulation and the most general acceptance possible by citizens witnessing the scene of punishment.  Lastly, in the project for a prison institution that was then developing, punishment was seen as a technique for the coercion of individuals; it operated methods of training the body –  not signs – by the traces it leaves, in the form of habits, in behaviour; and it presupposed the specific power for the administration of the penalty 4. Foucault treats the emergence of the prison as the dominant form of punishment. 5. EXPLAINED WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF DISCIPLINE: Treating the dominant regulatory institutions of nineteenth-century life simultaneously-- the military, the hospital, the school, the prison, the factory--Foucault expands on his notion of discipline, characteristically producing several consonant formulations. 6. WHAT IS DISCIPLINE & POWER Discipline is an art of rank, a technique for the transformation of arrangements.  It individualizes bodies by a location that does not give them a fixed position, but distributes them and circulates them in a network of relations The individuals that now form the multitudes carry out prescribed activities, play out their prescribed roles.  And, perhaps in the flattest, but broadest and most direct formulation, disciplines are techniques for assuring the ordering of human multiplicities 7. DISCIPLINARY SOCIETY: Through these institutions, then, individuals and individuality itself is constructed as resource to be deployed in the interests of power. 8. PANOPTIC STRUCTURE OF PRISON: The visibility to the tower promotes self-regulation on the part of the prisoners in the cells; they are aware that they may be seen at any time, and conduct themselves according to that restraint.  But, additionally for Bentham, the panoptic institutions were meant to be open to the public, transparent (as Foucault terms it) to any visitor all.   The position as the subject and object of that gaze are demanded in the economy of such a self-regulating, distributed power coupled to the knowledge of the newly formed soul. (or, you are constantly being monitored). 9. PRISON BENEFITTING ONLY THE ELITE: The figure of the delinquent emerges as the subject of the new discipline of criminology, providing a number of social and political advantages: increased supervision of populations, and with that, the creation of less dangerous forms of illegality.  And more importantly still, an illegality promoted the pleasuring of the dominating social groups 10. And the whole, in which the man-measure in its humanity has emerged, enforms and informs the soul which it imprisons. 11. PARTING WORDS The first is on the level of the technology itself.  As Foucault pursued the dangers of the spectacle in producing the carnival, we might begin to explore the present dangers to the prison system.  What excess does this very persistent visibility and self-regulation engender that is not in the interests of the dominant classes, that itself may one day demand an alternative structure to subdue it?  D. Mc Gaha, 2000 1. Main thought of Foucault: Foucault’s thoughts on how the elite in society dominate and control the rest of society.  Foucault believed no societal advancements have occurred since the Renaissance, only technology has grown, further enslaving the human spirit. .  Foucault is almost an anarchist in his dislike of societal rules and their affect on the human spirit.  For Foucault there was no higher purpose than being your own unique person. Foucault’s ideas about government’s role in oppressing people’s behavior and true identity have been related to why people commit crime 2. Old punishment: Crimes committed during this time were not crimes against the public good, but a personal affront to the King himself.  The public displays of torture and execution were public affirmations of the King’s authority to rule and to punish. 3. As public tortures and executions continued, the people subjected to torture became heroes, especially if the punishment was too excessive for the crime committed.  The convicted person was given a chance to speak prior to the execution.  This gave him an opportunity to repent for his crimes, but often it was used as an occasion to speak against the throne and the executioners 4. The public cried out for punishment without torture, which led to the invention of prison.  Deprivation of liberty became the main form of punishment.  Liberty is the one thing that is equal to everyone 5. Prisons became more than just places were liberty was deprived; they were places where discipline could be instilled.  Discipline was a drive to instill useful, social qualities into the convicts.  It was an attempt to reform the criminal so upon his release, he would be less likely to re-offend and more likely to be a contributing member of society. 6. The prisoners were forced to “constructively” use every minute that they were awake.  This was social training to prepare criminals for a life of productivity when released. 7. Constant supervision led to the development of institutional designs like Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon.  The panopticon had cells built around a central tower.  The cells opened in the front so the guards in the tower could see inside. Foucault said constant supervision and forced discipline broke the will of the criminal and made him into a “docile body”.  The “docile body” was easy to control by people in authority. 8. Prisons do not diminish the crime rate:  they can be extended, multiplied or transformed, the quantity of crime and criminals remains stable or, worse, increases 9. The prison cannot fail to produce delinquents.  It does so by the very type of exercise that it imposes on its inmates:  whether they are isolated in cells or whether they are given useless work, for which they will find no employment, it is, in any case, not ‘ to think of man in society; it is to create an unnatural, useless and dangerous existence’ 10. The prison makes possible, even encourages, the organization of a milieu of delinquents, loyal to one another, hierarchized, ready to aid and abet any future criminal act... 11. Foucault theorized the reason the prison system has lasted so long is it benefits the ruling social class.  He believed the ruling class used criminality as a way of preventing confrontations that could lead to revolution. 12. By committing crimes, they were calling for a change in the social system and rebelling against the social elite.  The ruling class used the law as a means to diminish the power of these uprisings. he legal systems segregated the most dynamic of the lowest social class from the rest of society, then forced them together as a group of outcasts, thus rendering them politically harmless. Foucault also stated by marking this group as criminals they are easier to supervise and keep disorganized by keeping the members flowing in and out of the prison system.  13. The ruling class placed a brand on the delinquent class posing them as a separate group from the normal lower class.  This allowed for the separation of the most dynamic group from the rest of the masses of oppressed, further restricting the likelihood the lowest class could affect social change. 14. Other social institutions following the penal system: Foucault believed other governmental programs, such as welfare and new educational techniques, expanded from the penal system. He called this expansion of disciplinary control the carceral archipelago.  It created a whole society of docile bodies submitting to the will of the state. “We have seen that, in penal justice, the prison transformed the punitive procedure into a penitentiary technique; the carceral archipelago transported this technique from penal institutions to the entire social body“  (Foucault, 1975:  298).  15. THUS:The prison system effectively incarcerates, isolates and economically controls the most dynamic members of the lower class.  The continuous cycle of segregation and supervision renders this most volatile group both politically and socially harmless. The discipline of the prison system has spilled out into all of society. E. Foucault, 1975 1. The disappearance of public executions marks therefore the decline of the spectacle; but it also marks a slackening of the hold on the body. 2. The body now serves as an instrument or intermediary: if one intervenes upon it to imprison it, or to make it work, it is in order to deprive the individual of a liberty that is regarded both as a right and as property. The body, according to this penality, is caught up in a system of constraints and privations, obligations and prohibitions 3. From being an art of unbearable sensations punishment has become an economy of suspended rights. p.11 4. Punishment had no doubt ceased to be centred on torture as a technique of pain; it assumed as its principal object loss of wealth or rights. But a punishment like forced labour or even imprisonment — mere loss of liberty — has never functioned without a certain additional element of punishment that certainly concerns the body itself: rationing of food, sexual deprivation, corporal punishment, solitary confinement. pp. 15-16 5. what is odd about modern criminal justice is that, although it has taken on so many extra-juridical elements, it has done so not in order to be able to define them juridically and gradually to integrate them into the actual power to punish: on the contrary, it has done so in order to make them function within the penal operation as non-juridical elements; in order to stop this operation being simply a legal punishment; in order to exculpate the judge from being purely and simply he who punishes. p. 22 F. Freeman, 2007 1. Public executions before: Before the early 19th century, European ideas of crime and punishment tended to involve very public displays of the power of the monarch and the power of the state against the offending individual. Nowhere was this tendency more evident than in the spectacle of public executions. Those convicted of murder, piracy, counterfeiting, or other notable capital crimes would be taken to a public place for hanging or decapitation, and certain kinds of crimes warranted particularly gruesome punishments. In England, for instance, until 1790 the official punishment for women convicted of petty treason — a wife who killed her husband or a servant who killed her master or mistress — was burning at the stake. The mass hangings of convicts were public spectacles, with public processions, viewing stands set up for spectators and an almost festival-like atmosphere on the day. 2. Social historians tend to point to the writings of progressive reformers who advocated a more dignified and humanitarian approach to the punishment of offenders 3. By looking at the evolution of justice systems (focusing primarily on France), he suggests that the shift away from public executions and towards the idea of incarceration and reform within prison walls was a means of reframing the image of the power of society over the individual. 4. By shifting the focus of justice into the prison and out of the public eye, authorities would have more direct control over the lives of those who had violated the norms of society. 5. Foucault compares prisons to other collective corrective organisations — convents and monasteries, military barracks, schools (both the regular kind and those formed for charity children or juvenile offenders), lunatic asylums and hospitals, workhouses for the poor, and even the large factory complexes of the early Industrial Revolution — and finds the common threads of common discipline, constant surveillance, enforced work and education, and strict adherence to an internal hierarchy in all of these institutions. 6. The idea of correction and reform has shifted society’s focus from the individual’s body (i.e., the brandings, tortures, and hangings carried out on offenders) to the individual’s mind and soul. This shift in focus, Foucault claims, has not had the reforming effect that the authorities would hope. Instead, it has actually encouraged and refined criminal activity and behaviours. G. Gulish, 2011 1. Effect of power on bodiesL Foucault describes historical developments in the disciplines. He starts his discussion with focusing on the effect that power has on the bodies, whether in isolating them, putting them to work, or restricting their motions and interactions. Foucault suggests that there could be a study of the body outside of its anatomical make up. 2. Foucault describes how such a system has allowed those in power to have ultimate control over the residents of the city, and he asserts that this control allows those who are in power to prevent any group from challenging their status of power. 3. He discusses how Panopticon structure could be employed in schools, in the hospitals, in the military, and in the industry. It could become a way for those who are in power to ensure that they would never be challenged, but also to improve the efficiency of their exercise of power. 4. HOW OTHER INSTITUTIONS ARE CONTROLLED: He describes the use of discipline in the military, which was originally focused on preventing desertion and disorder, but later starts to be used to increase military preparedness from all members of the military and to increase adherence to the chain of command. He also describes religious school system that evolves from serving the kids of faulty parents to serving as surveillance system for all parents. Schools, according to Foucault become not only places for disciplining the children, but also mechanisms of surveillance by those in power on the activities of the adults, therefore insuring that any challenges to the power structure are significantly reduced. H. Flyvbjerg & Richardson, 2002 DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF FOUCAULT’S OPPOSING IDEAS… 1. Power must have rationality This is what Flyvbjerg has called realrationalität, or ‘real-life’ rationality (Flyvbjerg 1996), where the focus shifts from what should be done to what is actually done (9). 2. Both Foucault and Habermas agree that in politics one must ‘side with reason (9) 3. Foucault here is the Nietzschean democrat, for whom any form of government - liberal or totalitarian - must be subjected to analysis and critique based on a will not to be dominated, voicing concerns in public and withholding consent about anything that appears to be unacceptable (10) 4. In a Foucauldian interpretation, such a morality would endanger freedom, not empower it. Instead, Foucault focuses on the analysis of evils and shows restraint in matters of commitment to ideas and systems of thought about what is good for man, given the historical experience that few things have produced more suffering among humans than strong commitments to implementing utopian visions of the good (10). 5. No need for universals: Our sociality and history, according to Foucault, is the only foundation we have, the only solid ground under our feet. And this socio-historical foundation is fully adequate (10). 6. We should admit rather that power produced knowledge .. that power and knowledge directly imply one another; that there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge ... (10) 7. Foucault, then, rationality was contingent, shaped by power relations, rather than context-free and objective. 8. ‘The problem is not of trying to dissolve [relations of power] in the utopia of a perfectly transparent communication, but to give...the rules of law, the techniques of management, and also the ethics...which would allow these games of power to be played with a minimum of domination.’ (11) 9. The depiction of Foucault as non-action oriented is correct to the extent that Foucault hesitates to give directives for action, and he directly distances himself from the kinds of universal ‘What is to be done?’ formulas which characterise procedure in Habermas’s communicative rationality. Foucault believes that ‘solutions’ of this type are themselves part of the problem (13). I. Gordon, 2002 1. To be ssure, the subject’s actions may follow a “rational” decisionmaking process yet her or his consent to act in a certain way is not simply or necessarily a manifestation of free choice (1). 2. Consent, Foucault says, can be manufactured through intricate controlling mechanisms that produce norms, constitute interests, and shape behavior. (125). 3. Social control, accordingly, is no longer conceived merely in negative terms as a set of prohibitions upheld by the sword, but rather considered to be an array of mechanisms that have the capacity to constitute the subject’s very interests and identity (126). 4. Insofar as everything can be reduced to the operations of power, all modes of thinking, critique, and action become effects of power (126). VISIBILITY AND CONTROL 1. Foucault’s emphasis on surveillance as one of the most efficacious controlling techniques within disciplinary society has highlighted the central role of visibility in his understanding of power and control (129). Read More