Key Arguments

• He formulates the basic opposition succinctly: "In short, the divergence is the following: punitive city or coercive institution?"
• The punitive city model is described as a socially distributed, representational functioning of penal power: "On the one hand, a functioning of penal power, distributed throughout the social space; present everywhere as scene, spectacle, sign, discourse; legible like an open book; operating by a permanent recodification of the mind of the citizens; eliminating crime by those obstacles placed before the idea of crime; acting invisibly and uselessly on the ‘soft fibres of the brain’, as Servan put it."
• In this model, punitive power would be diffused through the whole social network to the point of losing its character as a power of some over others: "A power to punish that ran the whole length of the social network would act at each of its points, and in the end would no longer be perceived as a power of certain individuals over others, but as an immediate reaction of all in relation to the individual."
• By contrast, the coercive institution concentrates punishment in a compact, disciplinary mechanism centred on the convict’s body and behaviour: "On the other hand, a compact functioning of the power to punish: a meticulous assumption of responsibility for the body and the time of the convict, a regulation of his movements and behaviour by a system of authority and knowledge; a concerted orthopaedy applied to convicts in order to reclaim them individually; an autonomous administration of this power that is isolated both from the social body and from the judicial power in the strict sense."
• Foucault identifies the emergence of the prison as the moment when this institutional, coercive form of punitive power becomes established: "The emergence of the prison marks the institutionalization of the power to punish, or, to be more precise: will the power to punish (with the strategic aim adopted in the late eighteenth century, the reduction of popular illegality) be better served by concealing itself beneath a general social function, in the ‘punitive city’, or by investing itself in a coercive institution, in the enclosed space of the ‘reformatory’?"

Source Quotes

The power that applied the penalties now threatened to be as arbitrary, as despotic, as the power that once decided them. In short, the divergence is the following: punitive city or coercive institution? On the one hand, a functioning of penal power, distributed throughout the social space; present everywhere as scene, spectacle, sign, discourse; legible like an open book; operating by a permanent recodification of the mind of the citizens; eliminating crime by those obstacles placed before the idea of crime; acting invisibly and uselessly on the ‘soft fibres of the brain’, as Servan put it.

In short, the divergence is the following: punitive city or coercive institution? On the one hand, a functioning of penal power, distributed throughout the social space; present everywhere as scene, spectacle, sign, discourse; legible like an open book; operating by a permanent recodification of the mind of the citizens; eliminating crime by those obstacles placed before the idea of crime; acting invisibly and uselessly on the ‘soft fibres of the brain’, as Servan put it. A power to punish that ran the whole length of the social network would act at each of its points, and in the end would no longer be perceived as a power of certain individuals over others, but as an immediate reaction of all in relation to the individual.

On the one hand, a functioning of penal power, distributed throughout the social space; present everywhere as scene, spectacle, sign, discourse; legible like an open book; operating by a permanent recodification of the mind of the citizens; eliminating crime by those obstacles placed before the idea of crime; acting invisibly and uselessly on the ‘soft fibres of the brain’, as Servan put it. A power to punish that ran the whole length of the social network would act at each of its points, and in the end would no longer be perceived as a power of certain individuals over others, but as an immediate reaction of all in relation to the individual. On the other hand, a compact functioning of the power to punish: a meticulous assumption of responsibility for the body and the time of the convict, a regulation of his movements and behaviour by a system of authority and knowledge; a concerted orthopaedy applied to convicts in order to reclaim them individually; an autonomous administration of this power that is isolated both from the social body and from the judicial power in the strict sense.

A power to punish that ran the whole length of the social network would act at each of its points, and in the end would no longer be perceived as a power of certain individuals over others, but as an immediate reaction of all in relation to the individual. On the other hand, a compact functioning of the power to punish: a meticulous assumption of responsibility for the body and the time of the convict, a regulation of his movements and behaviour by a system of authority and knowledge; a concerted orthopaedy applied to convicts in order to reclaim them individually; an autonomous administration of this power that is isolated both from the social body and from the judicial power in the strict sense. The emergence of the prison marks the institutionalization of the power to punish, or, to be more precise: will the power to punish (with the strategic aim adopted in the late eighteenth century, the reduction of popular illegality) be better served by concealing itself beneath a general social function, in the ‘punitive city’, or by investing itself in a coercive institution, in the enclosed space of the ‘reformatory’?

On the other hand, a compact functioning of the power to punish: a meticulous assumption of responsibility for the body and the time of the convict, a regulation of his movements and behaviour by a system of authority and knowledge; a concerted orthopaedy applied to convicts in order to reclaim them individually; an autonomous administration of this power that is isolated both from the social body and from the judicial power in the strict sense. The emergence of the prison marks the institutionalization of the power to punish, or, to be more precise: will the power to punish (with the strategic aim adopted in the late eighteenth century, the reduction of popular illegality) be better served by concealing itself beneath a general social function, in the ‘punitive city’, or by investing itself in a coercive institution, in the enclosed space of the ‘reformatory’? In any case, it can be said that, in the late eighteenth century, one is confronted by three ways of organizing the power to punish.

Key Concepts

• In short, the divergence is the following: punitive city or coercive institution?
• a functioning of penal power, distributed throughout the social space; present everywhere as scene, spectacle, sign, discourse; legible like an open book; operating by a permanent recodification of the mind of the citizens; eliminating crime by those obstacles placed before the idea of crime; acting invisibly and uselessly on the ‘soft fibres of the brain’, as Servan put it.
• A power to punish that ran the whole length of the social network would act at each of its points, and in the end would no longer be perceived as a power of certain individuals over others, but as an immediate reaction of all in relation to the individual.
• a compact functioning of the power to punish: a meticulous assumption of responsibility for the body and the time of the convict, a regulation of his movements and behaviour by a system of authority and knowledge; a concerted orthopaedy applied to convicts in order to reclaim them individually; an autonomous administration of this power that is isolated both from the social body and from the judicial power in the strict sense.
• The emergence of the prison marks the institutionalization of the power to punish

Context

After showing how corrective techniques conflict with reformist publicity, Foucault formulates the strategic choice between a dispersed ‘punitive city’ and a closed ‘reformatory’ institution, using this contrast to frame the historical significance of the prison’s rise.