Discipline And Punish: The Birth of the Prison

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1975

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “Torture”

Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary: “The body of the condemned”

The book opens with a detailed description of the public execution of Damiens the regicide on March 2, 1757. Foucault’s account of the event is graphic; he describes how Damiens was covered in boiling oil and molten lead, as well as the repeated attempts to quarter the body by using four horses pulling each limb. The only breaks in his torture were brought by the court clerk, who asked if Damiens had anything to say. Each time, Damiens asked for God’s forgiveness, and the torture reconvened. Foucault juxtaposes Damiens’s story with a cold listing of rules for Paris prisoners in 1837. Each hour is regimented with time for work, prayers, recreation, and instruction.

The 80 years between the execution of Damiens and the list of rules mark a shift in Western thinking about punishment and crime. European countries abandoned the public spectacle model. Prisoners were removed from the public eye altogether; the United States dropped its practice of shackling prisoners to dig ditches in view of the public, and France abolished public execution a few years after the rules for prisoners were drafted. Some believed that the brutality of public punishment desensitized citizens to violence.

The concealment of punishment has many notable outcomes. First, punishment becomes an abstract concept that is considered inevitable. The public is, therefore, removed from responsibility when justice is enacted. Second, people are afraid of the possibility of punishment rather than the punishment itself. Rather than paying attention to torture and executions, people are engrossed in the publicity of the trial and sentencing. The shameful act of punishment is committed off-camera, where guilt can be allocated to the executioner and the condemned.

This shift began as early as 1760 when a hanging machine was employed to streamline executions. The guillotine made its appearance in 1792, delivering swift and uncomplicated punishments. As time passed, sporadic but steady changes continued to move punishment into private spaces and out of the public eye. The condemned wore black veils and body shrouds, and the open cart transporting them to their deaths was replaced with a closed carriage. Soon, even the guillotine itself was tucked away behind prison walls. Foucault argues that the shift from body to soul is not complete; contemporary prisons combine a loss of freedoms with smaller punishments of the body: “rationing of food, sexual deprivation, corporal punishment, solitary confinement” (16). In this way, torture can never be fully separated from the experience of punishment.

Foucault asserts that regarding these changes in the penal system as direct outcomes to a society increasing in its devotion to humanitarian values is an oversimplification. Punishment of the soul reflected a shift in thinking about crime. Juries became more concerned with motive and the degree of will involved in the transgression. Because the soul was the recipient of judgment, punishment needed to be applied to the soul.

Another shift was the introduction of the concept of mental illness in the judicial system. As courts became more interested in motive and intention, they naturally also began to discuss and judge the stability and mental capacity of the accused. Psychiatric experts became important witnesses to the criminality of an individual with mental illness, and advisors for appropriate punishment. Therefore, the judicial system was able to expand its wingspan of power to include many non-judicial matters. By suggesting that justice is about reform and cure, the system solidifies its necessity.

Foucault then offers four rules for his study of power and justice. First, he will consider all the possible outcomes of the penal system, both repressive and positive. Second, he will consider how disciplinary techniques reflect society but also function as individual expressions of power. Third, he will study how the penal system overlaps with other human sciences. Fourth, he will determine whether the soul is a modern invention and if this is the reason for a societal shift in thinking about punishment.

Most of human history is centered on the body. Crime was associated with the physical behaviors and actions of the body. Bodies were useful for politics; they could be trained and utilized. Power was exerted onto bodies as a form of strategy. Foucault rejects the idea that power was only used by upper classes to control and oppress lower classes. Instead, power pervades all aspects of culture. Foucault argues that power constitutes people—it makes them human. Because of this, power produces knowledge; it creates social truth. Just as power produces knowledge, it also produces the soul. Foucault’s version of the soul differs from the Christian tradition; as power and punishment is applied to a man, his soul forms as a result.

Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary: “The spectacle of the scaffold”

France published an explanation of the hierarchy of punishments in 1670. Punishment of the body took many forms, and most of these were less vicious and happened behind closed doors. Criminals were more likely to be assigned banishment or fines than public execution. Torture served several purposes. The level of pain had to correlate with the intensity of the crime committed, and detailed rules were outlined by the judge. Torture also lends itself to the ritual and ceremony of justice. Some admonishments of the body even occurred after the criminal had died; these served as acts of spectacles of justice being enacted to its fullest capacity.

Foucault explains how the justice system worked in alliance with this type of punishment. The accused did not have access to the knowledge of the case until the day of sentencing. Only the prosecution had access to the details of each case. This approach created an imbalance of power that fortified the importance of secrecy. Investigations took place in private, stripping the defense of its opportunity to address charges. Therefore, only the prosecution and the judge held authority. Torture played an important part in the process, serving as both a part of the investigation and the confession. The public confession complemented the private investigation, and it was considered the highest form of evidence against the accused. Symbolic torture mirrored the crime committed. For example, Damiens was forced to carry the dagger with which he attempted to assassinate the King.

The concept of torture had Biblical ties; it was connected to the trials detailed in the Old Testament. Even as critics pointed to the prevalence of false confessions, torture was viewed as a way of eliciting the truth. The act of torture functioned as a type of religious ritual. It was only through the push and pull relationship of the accused and the investigator that epiphany could be reached. The truth always presumed guilt. Few instances of torture resulted in the release of a condemned person, wiped clean of any accusation. Instead, the condemned were put on public display, forced to present their bodies to the masses and to make grandiose pronouncements of their guilt. It was important for the confession to take place toward the end of the process of torture. This brought the best narrative result. The moment of confession at the end of the process of torture occupied a space between Earthly life and eternal judgment.

Beyond the spiritual, public execution also functions as a form of political ritual. The right of punishment belonged solely to the sovereign or monarch. While the crime may appear personal, all crimes were seen as an attack on the law and, therefore, on the sovereign. Torture and execution sent a message of power and domination. It reassured the public that the sovereign was still in control. Every crime was viewed as an act of terror, a direct assault on the authority of the state. The leader attended every execution and could, if so compelled, deliver a letter freeing the accused from their death.

Foucault suggests that the positive attitudes toward torture were partially due to the prevailing sensibilities about death. The public—having experienced disease, famine, and violence—were desensitized to death. Torture and execution helped to make sense of death; torture turned death into a ritual. The Enlightenment sought to end public torment: “[T]orture was to be denounced as a survival of the barbarities of another age: the mark of a savagery that was denounced as ‘Gothic’” (39). The journey to completely abolish torture was arduous, however. The penal system was dependent upon eliciting confessions through punishment of the body. The Age of Reason reframed torture as an atrocity. Foucault suggests that the atrocity is merely a reflection of the severity of the crime and an important component of political control. Its function had more to do with delivering a cultural message to the masses than it did with individualized truth.

People were the consumers of torture. Criminals were publicly effaced for the excitement and management of the spectators. The public was made afraid by what they witnessed, but they also served as part of the administration of justice. Their cries influenced the decisions of the sovereign about the fate of the accused. The eventual move away from public torture had little to do with an emphasis on humane treatment. Instead, it occurred as a result over concerns about the power of the public during executions. The masses raised such an outcry over executions, convinced that the arraigned were wrongly accused, that they posed a political threat to the autonomy of the sovereign.

Part 1 Analysis

Discipline and Punish opens with a detailed and gruesome description of punishment of the body. From the start, Foucault addresses a central theme: The Body Versus the Modern Soul. The philosopher asserts that the soul is a contemporary invention; prior to penal reform, disciplinary action focused on torture—physical punishment of the body. Foucault’s selection of Robert-François Damiens as his study for punishment by torture is noteworthy. “Damiens the regicide,” as he is referred to by Foucault, attempted assassination of King Louis XV in 1757. Prior to this day, Damiens struggled to hold a job after his time in the French army. He earned the name “Robert le Diable,” or “Robert the Devil,” because of his erratic behavior. The life of Damiens has led many historians to believe that he may have had a type of mental illness.

Prior to Discipline and Punish, Foucault wrote Madness and Civilization. In this work, Foucault uses genealogical analysis—a historical technique used in philosophy. This approach looks at singular events and details, especially those largely left out of major historical narratives. He believed these outliers provided the greatest insight into the structures that dominate human life. Foucault’s use of Damiens as the opening subject of Discipline and Punish establishes the use of genealogical analysis to examine the history and evolution of the Western penal system, and it highlights the idea of intention when it comes to criminality, which Foucault presents as a major component of the philosophical shifts of crime and punishment.

The shift from public execution to imprisonment marks the change in focus from the body to the soul. Damiens represents the punishment of the body. Foucault’s elicit description of his torture emphasizes this point. Prior to the carceral system, the body was the singular focus of the penal system and of strategies of power. The soul, which is hidden and secret, manifests itself in the secrecy of imprisonment. Foucault argues that the creation of the modern soul made it possible to alter the course of the Western penal system. However, this process is not entirely complete. Imprisonment itself contains elements of torture of the body. Solitary confinement and forced labor—while certainly psychological and spiritually demanding—are also punishments of the body. Foucault asserts that the modern soul and the body cannot be separated from contemporary punitive measures.

Public spectacle like that applied to Damiens is a specific form of The Function of Punishment. Foucault argues in these opening chapters that public spectacle and torture served to solidify the importance and power of the sovereign ruler. It also acted as a deterrent for potential offenders; by watching what might happen to them should they commit a similar crime, they would feel apprehensive to take the offending action. As social sensibilities changed, the penal system no longer needed to achieve these two aims. It became more important that people fear the possibility of punishment rather than the punishment itself. Criminals were moved indoors, out of public view. By concealing the punishment, fear blossomed in the soil of the unknown. Yet, these small aims are not the main function. Each represents a strategy of power that directs toward the ultimate function: to preserve the power and illegalities of the wealthy.

The evolution of punishment is indicative of the reframing of power. Public spectacle gave too much power to the people, since their riots and cries around the execution often determined the fate of the condemned. It pitted the masses against the sovereign, creating unnecessary tension. Foucault also draws a line in this opening section to The Relationship Between Knowledge and Power. By hiding the investigation from the accused, the justice system maintained a monopoly of power, and the modern discipline tactic of imprisonment works similarly in that the punishment itself is hidden from public view. The unknowability of the punishment makes it more frightening and increases the fear of the possibility of retribution. In both forms of punishment, knowledge is controlled so power can be defended and exercised.