Discipline and Punish

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of The Prison, by Michel Foucault. 

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of The Prison, is a book written by the philosopher Michel Foucault. 

Foucault tells the story of how (some) societies around the world evolved from physical punishments (e.g torture) to an incarceration system, in order to preserve (in theory) the most basic human right that for centuries had been violated: the right to life. 

The book is divided in four parts: torture, punishment, discipline and prison. 

The story opens as Foucault describes the public torture of Robert-François Damiens, who was convicted of attempted regicide. The author describes in rich details the horrors that Damiens went through until the moment when he finally dies. 

In the second part of his magnum opus, Foucault reached through the point in history when public torture gave way to public chain gangs. The punishment had became “softer”, but was still miles away from being humanitarian. 

The third part, Discipline, starts with the rising of prison as the form of punishment, in the 18th and 19th centuries. The chapter develops the concepts and changes that this new way of punishment caused to society. A hole new economy was shaped as well as new ways of social domain.

Finally, in Prison, the last part of the book, Foucault examines the construction of this system, within the idea that prison is just a small part of a much larger incarceration system, in which schools, factories and military institutions would also be included as a way of control. That, for Foucault, would create what he called the “panoptic society”. 

Discipline and Punish is what we can call an atemporal masterpiece. Even though it was written 45 years ago, Foucault’s ideas still reflect the organization of postmodern society and how punishment is understood. 

This should definitely be on the “must-read” list of anyone who aims to comprehend how the incarceration/punishment system works.