Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison

Although the book traverses a lot of historical ground, Foucault's discussion culminates in an analysis of Jeremy Bentham's prison concept. Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism philosophy, believed that individual rights are subordinate to the state. In fact, he went so far as to call them "nonsense on stilts." As long as the government protected its people and treated them decently, he did not believe that the polity could be accused of oppressing its citizen - be they convicts or otherwise. Thus, Bentham was the first philosopher to give the modern penal system its rational underpinnings. Today, we take it as a matter of course that those who do not conform to laws are trucked off to prison. But with this book, Foucault attempts to completely undermine our intuitive sense of what is right, what is coercive, what is rational, and ultimately what is true. Perhaps better than any other author out there, Foucault shows us the subtle madness of Western institutional logic.

Foucault focused on Bentham's prison model, or the Penopticon as Bentham called it - which literally means, that which sees all. The Penopticon prison, which was popular in the early nineteenth century, was designed to allow guards to see their prisons, but not allow prisoners to see guards. The building was circular, with prisoner's cells lining the outer diameter, and in the center of the circle was a large, central observational tower. At any given time, guards could be looking down into each prisoner's cells - and thereby monitor potentially unmoral behavior - but carefully-placed blinds prevented prisoners from seeing the guards, thereby leaving them to wonder if they were being monitored at any given moment. It was Bentham's belief that the "gaze" of the Panopticon would force prisoners to behave morally. Like the all-seeing eye of God, they would feel shame at their wicked ways. In effect, the coercive nature of the Panopticon was built into its very structure.

Discipline and Punish is still relevant for today, even though the Panopticon has vanished. For starters, the United States government now possesses the technology to view see and hear anybody on the face of the planet. In fact, just recently the FBI announced that they have the right (invested in them by the state) to monitor any phone conversations they deem a threat to national security. Furthermore, for the same reason, the CIA or the DIA may use high-tech satellite technology to monitor actions anywhere on the face of the planet. Currently, these satellites have the ability to spot and read the date off a dime in the street. These new technological developments have completely altered the meaning "gaze" in the modern context. In a very real way, we are all living in the Panopticon now.

Moreover, Foucault would have never guessed the future of American prison systems. Today, Americans put more people behind bars than in any other country in the world, while public education, job training, and other resources that might potentially help people stay off drugs or out of crime in the first place are under funded. Furthermore, the vast majority of convicts who are released - many having been brutalized in prison - often end up behind bars again in no time, usually for small offenses involving drugs or petty larceny (that is, non-violent crimes involving property). Thirty years ago, when Foucault died, prisons were still run by the state. However, today prisons are increasingly being privatized and run as businesses, with the further benefit of huge government subsidies. The United States now prioritizes prison funding over education and rehabilitation - spending roughly 40 billion a year on operation and construction of new prisons. The prison industry is booming.

Anyway, this book is a must-read classic. It will abhor you, enthrall you, and provide immeasurable food for thought. It drove me to ask questions about the nature of knowledge, history, and the evolution of a persecuting society. Controversial to the teeth, this work will definately activate all your higher faculties and blast you off on all sort of theoretical tangents. Once I started I couldn't put it down. As Foucault said himself, he writes "experience book," and I couldn't agree more. I highly recommend having this experience, if only for the sake of where it will land you.

A final note for those who are interested... Oddly enough, Jeremy Bentham was not buried or incinerated like most people after he died. He willed his body to be preserved and displayed. It was dissected in a medical amphitheater at the Web Street School of anatomy in London, three days after his death. (By the way, this was illegal at the time. Only executed murderers could be dissected according to the law). His organs were then removed, and the original head replaced with a wax one. After being stolen by students as a joke, the real head is now kept in a safe in the College. The body, dressed in Bentham's own clothes, remains stuffed with hay, straw, wool, cotton and lavender to keep moths away. Since he was a founder of University College, Bentham is ensconced inside a glass fronted mahogany case (on casters), set unceremoniously in a busy hallway. He is regularly visited by scholars from all over the world, once went to a beer festival in Germany, and is brought to the table once a year for the annual Bentham Dinner. Amazingly, he was also trundled to the annual Board of Directors meeting for years, who still leave his old chair empty out of respect.


About power and agency, not prisons   August 6, 2003
Peter A. Kindle (Manvel, TX United States)
113 out of 122 found this review helpful

This book is no more about the history of prisons than the fable of the rabbit and hare is about animal competition. Foucault is writing about the power of normalization in western society.

Within five minutes of my residence there are two large Texas state prisons. The offenders incarcerated in these facilities exist in a network of interlocking disciplinary mechanisms, mechanisms that Foucault unveils in this book. The criminal justice system, the prison environment, the educational/training opportunities available during incarceration, parolee supervision, and the limited employment options on release all coordinate to encapsulate the offender's life. The offender's agency is significantly impaired for the balance of his life regardless of his domiciliary.

I live in a master planned, suburban community subject to a detailed and lengthy list of deed restrictions. These deed restrictions dictate the colors that I can paint my house, the height to which my grass can grow, the type of trees that I can plant in the front yard as well as the insistence that I plant three trees in my front yard. My wife and I have had to paint the front door twice in the last four years to comply with homeowner association threats, and we have been chastised for offenses as "severe" as leaving a hose uncoiled for too long in the front yard.

Now I admit that there is a modicum of agency in my decision to live in this specific community; however, just like the offenders incarcerated nearby, I live in a network of interlocking disciplinary mechanisms. I contend that my agency is also significantly impaired. The difference between my life and the offender's life is one of degree, not kind.

This is the message Foucault communicates with both style and substance in this book. He identifies three means by which power works on each of us to coerce compliance with the standards of normality: hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and examination.

The sad and simple fact is that surveillance is coercive. We might all see the public good in maintaining records of the offenses of the violent, but think for a moment about all of the records kept on you - telephone calls, financial transactions, medical tests and treatment, insurance claims, library check outs, video rentals, credit reports, credit card transactions, property ownership, internet sites, and tax filings. Hierarchical observation is a fact of modern life, and it seems to be steadily increasing.

By normalizing judgment, Foucault is referring to the power inherent in all social expectations. Try applying for a job, a business loan, a home mortgage, or a graduate program, and you will quickly feel the power of normalizing judgments. Woe to the applicant who stands out as different! Rarely do those exercising judgment question their standards, and even more rarely do they make exceptions on an individual basis. The message is loud - conform or else.

The last and perhaps most subtle power of normalization lies in the use of examinations. Even low paying professions (public school teachers, social workers, home day care operators) must attain licensure through examination. In Texas, third graders cannot be promoted to the fourth grade without passing a statewide exam. We endure the dominance of testing because of its presumed objectivity, but we all know that testing is not objective. Bias in design and in test conditions influence outcomes, and the testing continues despite an absence of evidence that it reliably predicts future performance.

I think this book is brilliant and disturbing. It is not always easy to read, but then, what book worth reading is? Foucault is given to dramatic images, and he does little to mitigate the impact of these images on the reader. Perhaps he is really trying to increase this impact. Since he is attempting to counter the powers of normalization, he may need all of the momentum he can get.


Grisly...   May 13, 2000
D. Roberts (Battle Creek, Michigan United States)
34 out of 40 found this review helpful

Michel Foucault is a rather difficult individual to pigeonhole as belonging to one or another scholarly discipline. Is he a philosopher? Well, yes, but there is much more to his work than philosophical inquiry. Is he a psychologist? I suppose that could be argued. Is he a historian? Sort of, but then again his works contain so much philosophy....and round & round we go. So, probably the best thing to do is not attempt to confine Foucault to any one genre of scholarship.

The present book showcases all of Foucault's interwoven, cross-disciplinary talents. F takes us on a tour of the history of punishment in France & Britain over the course of the past 250 years. Surprisingly enough, our modern day image of huge prisons simply did not exist before that period.

The book grapples with the struggle of society to remain humane in a facet of life that is inherently inhumane: the treatment of our criminals. In doing so, F adopts the methodology utilized by Nietzsche in his "On The Geneology Of Morals."

We begin with the most grotesque executions of a few hundred years ago & witness how the paradigm shift went from vengeance to reform re: our handling of criminals. F notes how the primary goal of the prison became one of making the prisoner paranoid that he was being watched, which would (hopefully) instill within him the understanding that he could not get away with violating rules (both inside the prison & also once he was released back into society).

This is an extraordinary book that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in the judicial system, the history of the prison, or anyone who just has a curiousity about the social & political forces which decide the manner in which we mete out punishment to our malefactors. A great read.


Food for thought   February 7, 2001
B. Johnson
27 out of 33 found this review helpful

In "Discipline and Punish" Foucault analyzes the evolution of punishment from the 17th century to modern times and emphasizes the growing importance of the prison as an institution of punishment/reform. He builds an argument that the importance of discipline, that found its origin in the military, gradually spread to various institutions like schools, hospitals, factories and prisons. He discusses how the prison evolved from the dark dungeon, in which prisoners were thrown and were supplied with the bare essentials for survival, into machines of education , supervision and reform. Using the model system of the panopticon he explains the idea of discipline/reform through implied observation, and individualization. He further discusses how the prison was instrumental in creating the delinquent. While one can question Foucault's argumentation at many points, this book is rich in challenging ideas that should give food for thought, even to those that argue that crime can be solved by simply building more prisons. After reading this book, one can not help but wonder in how far the lofty goals of the prison as instrument of reform, that were formulated during the age of enlightenment, have lived up to their high expectations.

While Foucault's writing is miles away from Heidegger, it is not always as clear as one would desire. While he often provides numbered lists of arguments, a lot of the argumentation is far from the linearity that typifies colleagues like Spinoza and Kant. Don't let these minor points keep you from reading this book. While you may not agree with a lot of the arguments made in this book, Foucault forces you to analyze and (re)think yourself, which is the most important task for any meaningful philosopher. Required reading in the Ashcroft era!


Should we open the doors and throw away the keys?   January 17, 2001
Miguel B. Llora (Honolulu, Hawaii USA)
11 out of 14 found this review helpful

Discipline and Punish is a brutally honest exploration of the construction of self through the examiniation of the evolution of the prison over the recent past. Michelle Foucault has comprehensively researched and deconstructed the prison: its "architecture" (focus on the Gaze and Bentham's Panopticon), engaging in ideas of "subjectivity and the discursively constructed self", and most importantly "discipline" to create a study of the evolving idea of human nature. Foucualt presents the idea that the self has its origins in "power" and "knowledge". We are then a creation of societal and disciplinary forces that reverberate and cause the "subject" to surrender to patterns of life within the full matrix of the world. This comprehensive and passionate study of power and discipline is probably the most complete "postmodern" discussions of social forces; the theories are coherent and have huge implications for our understanding of who we are and how we came to fill the our little spaces in the everyday that are part and parcel of this interrelation of knowledge and power. He is a sociologist, a psychologist, a structuralist (although he hates the label) - he is all this but more. Foucualt is a social theorist that tries to defy categorization. If this stuff gets you going, you should try "I, Pierre Riviere.....", "Madness and Civilization" and for the structuralists out there, "The Order of Things." A masterpiece and my favorite of all his works.

Miguel Llora