Article Review. The Carceral in Foucaults Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, a book by Michel Foucault, first published in 1975, then later edited in English in 1977 still continues to rivet attention 35 years after it was written.

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Article Review

Foucault, M. (1977), “The Carceral”, in Foucault, M. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Penguin Books: London. pp. 293-308.

 “The Carceral” in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, a book by Michel Foucault, first published in 1975, then later edited in English in 1977 still continues to rivet attention 35 years after it was written. It is evident to believe that it is still revolutionary in its findings. Michel Foucault was a French philosopher, sociologist and historian. The professor of history and systems of social thought at college de France, Foucault is widely recognised as a leading social theorist.

 Discipline and Punish continues to provide insights and suggested solutions that appear in the penal system. Foucault’s point is to show how significantly the penal system changed in 80 years and details the history of the French penal system with the interpretation of historical events identifying the domination of human spirits. He argues, in the later part of the 18th century the focus of punishment began to shift from the body to the soul or mind of the offender to discipline them. He described discipline as a type of power. Prisons became more than just places where liberty was deprived.

Furthermore, the closing section of the book is the main focus of my review and is entitled, simply, “The carceral”. He investigated the massive shift from corporal to carceral punishment. Foucault analysed, our persistent and reasoned need to normalise individuals, to punish and reform deviance within society through discipline. Foucault tries to account for universal and historical developments and the emergence of a disciplined society “the carceral archipelago” in which all of institutional life is characterised by surveillance and discipline and in which delinquent and abnormal behaviour are subjected to scientific investigation. Ultimately, Discipline and Punish is a call to arms, a predict for the future, and a study of the past all organised into one elegant text.

The chapter opens with an explanation of a particular model French prison Mettray, possibly for young offenders. Foucault describes how this was more than just a prison which housed minors who had committed a crime and minors who had not committed a crime but were without normal family relations. He describes how Mettray and other institutions of social life such as the school, the family, the workshop, the army and the prison were interrelated by the development of similar disciplinary techniques and shared certain similar features. He described them as places in which one’s action came under the direction of another’s will. At Mettray, the timetable stressed physical exercise, hard work, and the organised recording of results. The aim was to produce “strong, skilled agricultural workers”. The prison trained other professionals too, focusing on techniques of “pure discipline”, rather than science, although Psychology was to develop in that institution. He explains “the disciplinary technique became a discipline which also had its school” (Foucault, 1977: 295). Traditionally, the school has been understood as a limited, relatively self contained and independent institution.

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According to Foucault, embodied in it was a “carceral continuum” a diverse range of institutions given over to the surveillance for the training and the normalization of individuals. He explained Penitentiary rationality as the central part of the carceral system. Nevertheless, the point that Foucault emphasises throughout is that discipline works under surveillance upon one’s actions and engages one’s will to perform. He described this process of constant supervision benefited in the production of obedient and capable bodies.  He believes it is this which not only helps in reforming criminals but also to the education of students, management of workers ...

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