Discipline and Punish
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Key Facts
full title · Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
author · Michel Foucault
language · French; translated into English in 1977.
time and place written · 1974–5, France
date of first publication · 1975
publisher · Gallimard
Imprisonment Critized
by brittfoerster, April 12, 2013
The ideal of a penal imprisonment is criticized by many reformers because
1. it is incapable of corresponding to the specificity of crimes
2. it has no effect on the public
3. It is useless, even harmful to society: it is costly. it maintains convicts in idleness, it multiplies their vices.
4. the execution of this penalty (imprisonment) is difficult to supervise
5. There is a risk of exposing prisoners to the uncontrolled power of the guards
6. The job (prison guard) is an exercise of tyranny (dictatorship)
