Jack Semancik’s Reviews > Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison > Status Update

Foucault details the shifting power relations in the punishment of criminals, shifting from a sovereign vs criminal model to one of society vs criminality. With this shift away from embodying the willing vengeance of the sovereign, judges came to be cautious enforcers of “humane” punishments, balancing the scale of individual criminal intent against the deterrence of future criminality. The spectacle disappears.

Details the role of judicial torture in redressing criminality in Early Modern Europe, constructing crime as an affront to the sovereign (similar to an act of rebellion, and punished accordingly). Describes the public nature of these punishments serving both as a tactic of terror and a release valve (the audience was entreated to limited participation, as well as a saturnalia in the reaction of the condemned).

Chapter 1 begins with an outline of the shifting emphasis of carceral punishment from the body (prior to the 19th century) to the “soul” (from the mid-19th century on), shifting from exacting torture on the body to enforcing the conformity of the prisoner. Briefly details power and its irrevocable connection with knowledge (“knowledge-power”), and how this has shifted alongside our understanding of justice.