M.A. King wrote:
>Well, don't forget that capital punishment was in in France at the time
>Foucault was writing _Discipline and Punish_. Are today's
>prisons--setting aside the whims of the middle classes and their
>editorialists--really less geared toward "rehabilitation" than prisons
>were at the time of the riots at Attica and in France that were part of
>the motivation behind D&P? I really don't know--but I really suspect not,
>too. The conservative government here in Ontario announced a couple of
>years ago that it was jumping on the boot camp bandwagon--but so far, only
>one has been implemented. A lot more smoke than fire, so far. That may
>change, though, because that one boot camp is being hailed as a smashing
>success. A success at what?--at turning car thieves into model citizens.
>Seems that we haven't regressed to the point where brutality can be sold
>as brutality....
>
>Anyway, even if there *is* a general regression occurring, isn't D&P still
>relevant (apart from its fairly obvious continuing relevance in areas
>outside penal practices) as a cautionary tale for "progressives" trying
>to reverse that regression?
I'll admit that one of the reasons I asked the question originally is that
it seemed lots of Foucaultians were treating F's writings as scripture, and
not doing much fresh thinking on their own. Not unlike many Marxists,
really. D&P is extremely relevant, for sure, but the world has changed, at
least here in the US of A. You're obviously out of touch with penal
practice here in the land of the free if you think the turn from
rehabilitation is just "the whims of the middle classes and their
editorialists," which is a pretty meaningless formulation on its own, not
to mention in its application to crime and punishment. Take, for example,
the popular three strikes & you're out laws. A recent issue of the
excellent Prison Legal News reprinted a story by Christian Parenti on the
application of that law in Pelican Bay prison in California. The prison
staff now so dominates the political machinery in that prison's county that
they're able to frame prisoners who have two strikes (felony convictions)
against them and get them convicted on a third, thus assuring a life
sentence and a bursting jailhouse. (It's a nice job-creation program, you
see.) States all across this country are making prison life harsher -
taking away exercise equipment, TVs, cigarettes - in the interests of
making the experience one of pure punishment. It plays well with the
"middle classes and their editorialists." And I haven't even mentioned the
blood riots outside prisons as executions are conducted. Ok, they're not
literally riots, but they're crowds baying for death. Deep inside the
prison, though, it's all medicalized, with staff in white coats preparing
the condemned for the fatal jab. In some cases, they even swab the site of
the injection with alcohol. The anus is sometimes plugged to prevent
unsightly expulsions that would ruin the purity of the moment.
Doug
>Well, don't forget that capital punishment was in in France at the time
>Foucault was writing _Discipline and Punish_. Are today's
>prisons--setting aside the whims of the middle classes and their
>editorialists--really less geared toward "rehabilitation" than prisons
>were at the time of the riots at Attica and in France that were part of
>the motivation behind D&P? I really don't know--but I really suspect not,
>too. The conservative government here in Ontario announced a couple of
>years ago that it was jumping on the boot camp bandwagon--but so far, only
>one has been implemented. A lot more smoke than fire, so far. That may
>change, though, because that one boot camp is being hailed as a smashing
>success. A success at what?--at turning car thieves into model citizens.
>Seems that we haven't regressed to the point where brutality can be sold
>as brutality....
>
>Anyway, even if there *is* a general regression occurring, isn't D&P still
>relevant (apart from its fairly obvious continuing relevance in areas
>outside penal practices) as a cautionary tale for "progressives" trying
>to reverse that regression?
I'll admit that one of the reasons I asked the question originally is that
it seemed lots of Foucaultians were treating F's writings as scripture, and
not doing much fresh thinking on their own. Not unlike many Marxists,
really. D&P is extremely relevant, for sure, but the world has changed, at
least here in the US of A. You're obviously out of touch with penal
practice here in the land of the free if you think the turn from
rehabilitation is just "the whims of the middle classes and their
editorialists," which is a pretty meaningless formulation on its own, not
to mention in its application to crime and punishment. Take, for example,
the popular three strikes & you're out laws. A recent issue of the
excellent Prison Legal News reprinted a story by Christian Parenti on the
application of that law in Pelican Bay prison in California. The prison
staff now so dominates the political machinery in that prison's county that
they're able to frame prisoners who have two strikes (felony convictions)
against them and get them convicted on a third, thus assuring a life
sentence and a bursting jailhouse. (It's a nice job-creation program, you
see.) States all across this country are making prison life harsher -
taking away exercise equipment, TVs, cigarettes - in the interests of
making the experience one of pure punishment. It plays well with the
"middle classes and their editorialists." And I haven't even mentioned the
blood riots outside prisons as executions are conducted. Ok, they're not
literally riots, but they're crowds baying for death. Deep inside the
prison, though, it's all medicalized, with staff in white coats preparing
the condemned for the fatal jab. In some cases, they even swab the site of
the injection with alcohol. The anus is sometimes plugged to prevent
unsightly expulsions that would ruin the purity of the moment.
Doug