Key Arguments

• Foucault claims that beyond its restraining effect on everyday illegalities, delinquency is ‘directly useful’ as a milieu ‘both separate and manipulable’, especially ‘on the fringes of legality’, where a ‘subordinate illegality’ is set up whose organization as delinquency ‘provided a guarantee of docility.’
• He states unequivocally that ‘Delinquency, controlled illegality, is an agent for the illegality of the dominant groups.’, indicating that the delinquent milieu is used to manage and profit from illegal practices that serve ruling interests.
• The nineteenth‑century prostitution system is given as a paradigmatic case: police and health checks, regular imprisonment, organized maisons closes, strict internal hierarchy, and control by delinquent‑informers ‘made it possible to canalize and to recover by a whole series of intermediaries the enormous profits from a sexual pleasure’ rendered semi‑clandestine and expensive by moralization; delinquency here acts as ‘an illicit fiscal agent operating over illegal practices.’
• He draws parallels with arms trafficking, illegal alcohol sales in prohibition regimes, and modern drug trafficking to illustrate ‘this “useful delinquency”’: a legal prohibition generates a field of illegal practices ‘which one manages to supervise, while extracting from it an illicit profit through elements, themselves illegal, but rendered manipulable by their organization in delinquency.’
• Politically, delinquency is an ‘instrument for the illegality with which the very exercise of power surrounds itself’: the long‑standing use of delinquents as informers and agents provocateurs expands after the Revolution into large‑scale infiltration of parties and workers’ associations, recruitment of thugs against strikers and rioters, and the formation of a ‘sub-police’ or ‘sort of parallel army’ making up ‘a whole extra-legal functioning of power’.
• This extra‑legal apparatus draws on a ‘mass of reserve labour constituted by the delinquents: a clandestine police force and standby army at the disposal of the state.’, reaching a peak in France around the 1848 Revolution and Louis‑Napoleon’s coup, as Foucault notes with reference to Marx’s ‘Eighteenth Brumaire’.
• He concludes that ‘Delinquency, solidified by a penal system centred upon the prison, thus represents a diversion of illegality for the illicit circuits of profit and power of the dominant class.’, tying the economic and political uses together as structural, not incidental, functions of the carcerally organized delinquent milieu.

Source Quotes

The example of colonization comes to mind. Yet it is not the most convincing example; indeed, although the deportation of criminals was demanded on several occasions under the Restoration, either by the Chamber of Deputies or by the General Councils, this was essentially in order to lighten the financial burdens imposed by the whole apparatus of detention; and, despite all the projects that were drawn up under the July monarchy for delinquents, undisciplined soldiers, prostitutes and orphans to take part in the colonization of Algeria, that colony was formally excluded, by the law of 1854, from becoming one of the overseas penal colonies; in fact, deportation to Guiana or later to New Caledonia had no real economic importance, despite the obligation imposed on the convicts to remain in the colony where they had served their sentence for a number of years equal to their time of detention (in certain cases, they even had to spend the rest of their lives there).14 In fact, the use of delinquency as a milieu that was both separate and manipulable took place above all on the fringes of legality, that is to say, a sort of subordinate illegality was also set up in the nineteenth century whose organization as delinquency, with all the surveillance that this implies, provided a guarantee of docility. Delinquency, controlled illegality, is an agent for the illegality of the dominant groups.

Yet it is not the most convincing example; indeed, although the deportation of criminals was demanded on several occasions under the Restoration, either by the Chamber of Deputies or by the General Councils, this was essentially in order to lighten the financial burdens imposed by the whole apparatus of detention; and, despite all the projects that were drawn up under the July monarchy for delinquents, undisciplined soldiers, prostitutes and orphans to take part in the colonization of Algeria, that colony was formally excluded, by the law of 1854, from becoming one of the overseas penal colonies; in fact, deportation to Guiana or later to New Caledonia had no real economic importance, despite the obligation imposed on the convicts to remain in the colony where they had served their sentence for a number of years equal to their time of detention (in certain cases, they even had to spend the rest of their lives there).14 In fact, the use of delinquency as a milieu that was both separate and manipulable took place above all on the fringes of legality, that is to say, a sort of subordinate illegality was also set up in the nineteenth century whose organization as delinquency, with all the surveillance that this implies, provided a guarantee of docility. Delinquency, controlled illegality, is an agent for the illegality of the dominant groups. The setting up of prostitution networks in the nineteenth century is characteristic in this respect:15 police checks and checks on the prostitutes’ health, their regular stay in prison, the large-scale organization of the maisons closes, or brothels, the strict hierarchy that was maintained in the prostitution milieu, its control by delinquent-informers, all this made it possible to canalize and to recover by a whole series of intermediaries the enormous profits from a sexual pleasure that an ever-more insistent everyday moralization condemned to semi-clandestinity and naturally made expensive; in setting up a price for pleasure, in creating a profit from repressed sexuality and in collecting this profit, the delinquent milieu was in complicity with a self-interested puritanism: an illicit fiscal agent operating over illegal practices.16 Arms trafficking, the illegal sale of alcohol in prohibition countries, or more recently drug trafficking show a similar functioning of this ‘useful delinquency’: the existence of a legal prohibition creates around it a field of illegal practices, which one manages to supervise, while extracting from it an illicit profit through elements, themselves illegal, but rendered manipulable by their organization in delinquency.

Delinquency, controlled illegality, is an agent for the illegality of the dominant groups. The setting up of prostitution networks in the nineteenth century is characteristic in this respect:15 police checks and checks on the prostitutes’ health, their regular stay in prison, the large-scale organization of the maisons closes, or brothels, the strict hierarchy that was maintained in the prostitution milieu, its control by delinquent-informers, all this made it possible to canalize and to recover by a whole series of intermediaries the enormous profits from a sexual pleasure that an ever-more insistent everyday moralization condemned to semi-clandestinity and naturally made expensive; in setting up a price for pleasure, in creating a profit from repressed sexuality and in collecting this profit, the delinquent milieu was in complicity with a self-interested puritanism: an illicit fiscal agent operating over illegal practices.16 Arms trafficking, the illegal sale of alcohol in prohibition countries, or more recently drug trafficking show a similar functioning of this ‘useful delinquency’: the existence of a legal prohibition creates around it a field of illegal practices, which one manages to supervise, while extracting from it an illicit profit through elements, themselves illegal, but rendered manipulable by their organization in delinquency. This organization is an instrument for administering and exploiting illegalities.

This organization is an instrument for administering and exploiting illegalities. It is also an instrument for the illegality with which the very exercise of power surrounds itself. The political use of delinquents – as informers and agents provocateurs – was a fact well before the nineteenth century.17 But, after the Revolution, this practice acquired quite different dimensions: the infiltration of political parties and workers’ associations, the recruitment of thugs against strikers and rioters, the organization of a sub-police – working directly with the legal police and capable if necessary of becoming a sort of parallel army – a whole extra-legal functioning of power was partly assured by the mass of reserve labour constituted by the delinquents: a clandestine police force and standby army at the disposal of the state.

It is also an instrument for the illegality with which the very exercise of power surrounds itself. The political use of delinquents – as informers and agents provocateurs – was a fact well before the nineteenth century.17 But, after the Revolution, this practice acquired quite different dimensions: the infiltration of political parties and workers’ associations, the recruitment of thugs against strikers and rioters, the organization of a sub-police – working directly with the legal police and capable if necessary of becoming a sort of parallel army – a whole extra-legal functioning of power was partly assured by the mass of reserve labour constituted by the delinquents: a clandestine police force and standby army at the disposal of the state. It seems that, in France, it was around the Revolution of 1848 and Louis Napoleon’s seizure of power that these practices reached their height (Marx, Eighteenth Brumaire …, 63–5).

It seems that, in France, it was around the Revolution of 1848 and Louis Napoleon’s seizure of power that these practices reached their height (Marx, Eighteenth Brumaire …, 63–5). Delinquency, solidified by a penal system centred upon the prison, thus represents a diversion of illegality for the illicit circuits of profit and power of the dominant class. The organization of an isolated illegality, enclosed in delinquency, would not have been possible without the development of police supervision.

Key Concepts

• In fact, the use of delinquency as a milieu that was both separate and manipulable took place above all on the fringes of legality, that is to say, a sort of subordinate illegality was also set up in the nineteenth century whose organization as delinquency, with all the surveillance that this implies, provided a guarantee of docility.
• Delinquency, controlled illegality, is an agent for the illegality of the dominant groups.
• The setting up of prostitution networks in the nineteenth century is characteristic in this respect:15 police checks and checks on the prostitutes’ health, their regular stay in prison, the large-scale organization of the maisons closes, or brothels, the strict hierarchy that was maintained in the prostitution milieu, its control by delinquent-informers, all this made it possible to canalize and to recover by a whole series of intermediaries the enormous profits from a sexual pleasure that an ever-more insistent everyday moralization condemned to semi-clandestinity and naturally made expensive; in setting up a price for pleasure, in creating a profit from repressed sexuality and in collecting this profit, the delinquent milieu was in complicity with a self-interested puritanism: an illicit fiscal agent operating over illegal practices.16
• Arms trafficking, the illegal sale of alcohol in prohibition countries, or more recently drug trafficking show a similar functioning of this ‘useful delinquency’: the existence of a legal prohibition creates around it a field of illegal practices, which one manages to supervise, while extracting from it an illicit profit through elements, themselves illegal, but rendered manipulable by their organization in delinquency.
• It is also an instrument for the illegality with which the very exercise of power surrounds itself.
• the infiltration of political parties and workers’ associations, the recruitment of thugs against strikers and rioters, the organization of a sub-police – working directly with the legal police and capable if necessary of becoming a sort of parallel army – a whole extra-legal functioning of power was partly assured by the mass of reserve labour constituted by the delinquents: a clandestine police force and standby army at the disposal of the state.
• Delinquency, solidified by a penal system centred upon the prison, thus represents a diversion of illegality for the illicit circuits of profit and power of the dominant class.

Context

Later middle portion of the passage, where Foucault details how delinquency, once organized and supervised, is used to run and skim profits from prohibited markets like prostitution and various traffics, and to furnish the state with informers, agents provocateurs, and violent auxiliaries, thereby servicing both the economic and extra‑legal political interests of dominant groups.