Key Arguments

• Foucault notes that the orphanage tribunal and similar mechanisms exemplify a specific internal justice: ‘At the heart of all disciplinary systems functions a small penal mechanism. It enjoys a kind of judicial privilege with its own laws, its specific offences, its particular forms of judgement.’
• He says that ‘The disciplines established an “infra-penality”; they partitioned an area that the laws had left empty; they defined and repressed a mass of behaviour that the relative indifference of the great systems of punishment had allowed to escape.’ This shows that discipline expands penal concern into domains ignored by classical law.
• He lists micro-offences defined in a workshop: ‘On entering, the companions will greet one another … on leaving, they must lock up the materials and tools that they have been using and also make sure that their lamps are extinguished’; ‘it is expressly forbidden to amuse companions by gestures or in any other way’; they must ‘comport themselves honestly and decently’ … it is forbidden to do ‘anything that may harm M. Oppenheim and his companions’.
• He generalizes that ‘The workshop, the school, the army were subject to a whole micro-penality of time (latenesses, absences, interruptions of tasks), of activity (inattention, negligence, lack of zeal), of behaviour (impoliteness, disobedience), of speech (idle chatter, insolence), of the body (“incorrect” attitudes, irregular gestures, lack of cleanliness), of sexuality (impurity, indecency).’
• Foucault emphasizes that both the tiniest deviations and the smallest elements of the apparatus are harnessed to punishment: ‘it was a question both of making the slightest departures from correct behaviour subject to punishment, and of giving a punitive function to the apparently indifferent elements of the disciplinary apparatus: so that, if necessary, everything might serve to punish the slightest thing; each subject find himself caught in a punishable, punishing universality.’
• He cites La Salle’s expansive definition of punishment: ‘By the word punishment, one must understand everything that is capable of making children feel the offence they have committed, everything that is capable of humiliating them, of confusing them: … a certain coldness, a certain indifference, a question, a humiliation, a removal from office’.

Source Quotes

The troop then marched off in the greatest order’ (Pictet). At the heart of all disciplinary systems functions a small penal mechanism. It enjoys a kind of judicial privilege with its own laws, its specific offences, its particular forms of judgement. The disciplines established an ‘infra-penality’; they partitioned an area that the laws had left empty; they defined and repressed a mass of behaviour that the relative indifference of the great systems of punishment had allowed to escape.

It enjoys a kind of judicial privilege with its own laws, its specific offences, its particular forms of judgement. The disciplines established an ‘infra-penality’; they partitioned an area that the laws had left empty; they defined and repressed a mass of behaviour that the relative indifference of the great systems of punishment had allowed to escape. ‘On entering, the companions will greet one another … on leaving, they must lock up the materials and tools that they have been using and also make sure that their lamps are extinguished’; ‘it is expressly forbidden to amuse companions by gestures or in any other way’; they must ‘comport themselves honestly and decently’; anyone who is absent for more than five minutes without warning M.

Oppenheim and his companions’ (Oppenheim, 29 September 1809). The workshop, the school, the army were subject to a whole micro-penality of time (latenesses, absences, interruptions of tasks), of activity (inattention, negligence, lack of zeal), of behaviour (impoliteness, disobedience), of speech (idle chatter, insolence), of the body (‘incorrect’ attitudes, irregular gestures, lack of cleanliness), of sexuality (impurity, indecency). At the same time, by way of punishment, a whole series of subtle procedures was used, from light physical punishment to minor deprivations and petty humiliations.

At the same time, by way of punishment, a whole series of subtle procedures was used, from light physical punishment to minor deprivations and petty humiliations. It was a question both of making the slightest departures from correct behaviour subject to punishment, and of giving a punitive function to the apparently indifferent elements of the disciplinary apparatus: so that, if necessary, everything might serve to punish the slightest thing; each subject find himself caught in a punishable, punishing universality. ‘By the word punishment, one must understand everything that is capable of making children feel the offence they have committed, everything that is capable of humiliating them, of confusing them: … a certain coldness, a certain indifference, a question, a humiliation, a removal from office’ (La Salle, Conduite …, 204–5).

It was a question both of making the slightest departures from correct behaviour subject to punishment, and of giving a punitive function to the apparently indifferent elements of the disciplinary apparatus: so that, if necessary, everything might serve to punish the slightest thing; each subject find himself caught in a punishable, punishing universality. ‘By the word punishment, one must understand everything that is capable of making children feel the offence they have committed, everything that is capable of humiliating them, of confusing them: … a certain coldness, a certain indifference, a question, a humiliation, a removal from office’ (La Salle, Conduite …, 204–5). 2.

Key Concepts

• At the heart of all disciplinary systems functions a small penal mechanism. It enjoys a kind of judicial privilege with its own laws, its specific offences, its particular forms of judgement.
• The disciplines established an ‘infra-penality’; they partitioned an area that the laws had left empty; they defined and repressed a mass of behaviour that the relative indifference of the great systems of punishment had allowed to escape.
• The workshop, the school, the army were subject to a whole micro-penality of time (latenesses, absences, interruptions of tasks), of activity (inattention, negligence, lack of zeal), of behaviour (impoliteness, disobedience), of speech (idle chatter, insolence), of the body (‘incorrect’ attitudes, irregular gestures, lack of cleanliness), of sexuality (impurity, indecency).
• so that, if necessary, everything might serve to punish the slightest thing; each subject find himself caught in a punishable, punishing universality.
• By the word punishment, one must understand everything that is capable of making children feel the offence they have committed, everything that is capable of humiliating them, of confusing them: … a certain coldness, a certain indifference, a question, a humiliation, a removal from office

Context

Opening subsection of ‘Normalizing judgement’, where Foucault moves from an example of a school tribunal and workshop regulations to a general characterization of disciplinary ‘infra-penality’ and the micro-offences it creates.