Key Arguments

• Foucault defines Mettray as ‘a prison, but not entirely’, since it contained both young delinquents and minors ‘charged, but acquitted’ and ‘boarders held, as in the eighteenth century, as an alternative to paternal correction’, showing how it sits at ‘the limit of strict penality’.
• He notes that Mettray was ‘the most famous of a whole series of institutions which, well beyond the frontiers of criminal law, constituted what one might call the carceral archipelago.’
• Despite revolutionary principles proclaiming ‘no imprisonment “outside the law”, no detention that had not been decided by a qualified judicial institution’, Foucault insists that ‘the very principle of extra-penal incarceration was in fact never abandoned’ and that classical confinement was ‘very soon reactivated, rearranged, developed in certain directions.’
• Crucially, ‘it was homogenized, through the mediation of the prison, on the one hand with legal punishments and, on the other, with disciplinary mechanisms’, so that ‘The frontiers between confinement, judicial punishment and institutions of discipline … tended to disappear and to constitute a great carceral continuum.’
• This continuum ‘diffused penitentiary techniques into the most innocent disciplines, transmitting disciplinary norms into the very heart of the penal system and placing over the slightest illegality, the smallest irregularity, deviation or anomaly, the threat of delinquency.’
• He lists a broad range of institutions as part of this archipelago: agricultural sections in maisons centrales, colonies for poor vagrant children, almshouses for ‘young female offenders’ and ‘poor innocent girls’, penal colonies for minors (acquitted or condemned) and ‘vicious and insubordinate wards’, establishments for abandoned or indigent children and apprentices, factory‑convents where girl workers are confined under quasi‑penitentiary regimes, as well as charitable societies, moral improvement associations, assistance organizations and workers’ estates and lodging houses that ‘used some of the carceral methods’.
• He sums this up as ‘a subtle, graduated carceral net, with compact institutions, but also separate and diffused methods’, which took charge of the earlier ‘arbitrary, widespread, badly integrated confinement’ and ultimately ‘reaches all the disciplinary mechanisms that function throughout society.’
• Finally, he states that ‘the carceral archipelago transported this technique [the penitentiary technique] from the penal institution to the entire social body’, indicating that the prison is now just one node in a generalized carceral network.

Source Quotes

Because Mettray was a prison, but not entirely; a prison in that it contained young delinquents condemned by the courts; and yet something else, too, because it also contained minors who had been charged, but acquitted under article 66 of the code, and boarders held, as in the eighteenth century, as an alternative to paternal correction. Mettray, a punitive model, is at the limit of strict penality. It was the most famous of a whole series of institutions which, well beyond the frontiers of criminal law, constituted what one might call the carceral archipelago. Yet the general principles, the great codes and subsequent legislation were quite clear on the matter: no imprisonment ‘outside the law’, no detention that had not been decided by a qualified judicial institution, no more of those arbitrary and yet widespread confinements.

It was the most famous of a whole series of institutions which, well beyond the frontiers of criminal law, constituted what one might call the carceral archipelago. Yet the general principles, the great codes and subsequent legislation were quite clear on the matter: no imprisonment ‘outside the law’, no detention that had not been decided by a qualified judicial institution, no more of those arbitrary and yet widespread confinements. Yet the very principle of extra-penal incarceration was in fact never abandoned. (A whole study remains to be done of the debates that took place during the Revolution concerning family courts, paternal correction and the right of parents to lock up their children.) And, if the apparatus of the great classical form of confinement was partly (and only partly) dismantled, it was very soon reactivated, rearranged, developed in certain directions.

(A whole study remains to be done of the debates that took place during the Revolution concerning family courts, paternal correction and the right of parents to lock up their children.) And, if the apparatus of the great classical form of confinement was partly (and only partly) dismantled, it was very soon reactivated, rearranged, developed in certain directions. But what is still more important is that it was homogenized, through the mediation of the prison, on the one hand with legal punishments and, on the other, with disciplinary mechanisms. The frontiers between confinement, judicial punishment and institutions of discipline, which were already blurred in the classical age, tended to disappear and to constitute a great carceral continuum that diffused penitentiary techniques into the most innocent disciplines, transmitting disciplinary norms into the very heart of the penal system and placing over the slightest illegality, the smallest irregularity, deviation or anomaly, the threat of delinquency.

But what is still more important is that it was homogenized, through the mediation of the prison, on the one hand with legal punishments and, on the other, with disciplinary mechanisms. The frontiers between confinement, judicial punishment and institutions of discipline, which were already blurred in the classical age, tended to disappear and to constitute a great carceral continuum that diffused penitentiary techniques into the most innocent disciplines, transmitting disciplinary norms into the very heart of the penal system and placing over the slightest illegality, the smallest irregularity, deviation or anomaly, the threat of delinquency. A subtle, graduated carceral net, with compact institutions, but also separate and diffused methods, assumed responsibility for the arbitrary, widespread, badly integrated confinement of the classical age.

The frontiers between confinement, judicial punishment and institutions of discipline, which were already blurred in the classical age, tended to disappear and to constitute a great carceral continuum that diffused penitentiary techniques into the most innocent disciplines, transmitting disciplinary norms into the very heart of the penal system and placing over the slightest illegality, the smallest irregularity, deviation or anomaly, the threat of delinquency. A subtle, graduated carceral net, with compact institutions, but also separate and diffused methods, assumed responsibility for the arbitrary, widespread, badly integrated confinement of the classical age. I shall not attempt here to reconstitute the whole network that formed first the immediate surroundings of the prison, then spread farther and farther outwards.

However, a few references and dates should give some idea of the breadth and precocity of the phenomenon. There were agricultural sections in the maisons centrales (the first example of which was Gaillon in 1824, followed later by Fontevrault, Les Douaires, Le Boulard); there were colonies for poor, abandoned vagrant children (Petit-Bourg in 1840, Ostwald in 1842); there were almshouses for young female offenders who ‘recoiled before the idea of entering a life of disorder’, for ‘poor innocent girls whose mothers’ immorality has exposed to precocious perversity’, or for poor girls found on the doorsteps of hospitals and lodging houses. There were penal colonies envisaged by the law of 1850: minors, acquitted or condemned, were to be sent to these colonies and ‘brought up in common, under strict discipline, and trained in agricultural work and in the principal industries related to it;’ later, they were to be joined by minors sentenced to hard labour for life and ‘vicious and insubordinate wards of the Public Assistance’ (on all these institutions, cf. Gaillac, 99–107).

There were penal colonies envisaged by the law of 1850: minors, acquitted or condemned, were to be sent to these colonies and ‘brought up in common, under strict discipline, and trained in agricultural work and in the principal industries related to it;’ later, they were to be joined by minors sentenced to hard labour for life and ‘vicious and insubordinate wards of the Public Assistance’ (on all these institutions, cf. Gaillac, 99–107). And, moving still farther away from penality in the strict sense, the carceral circles widen and the form of the prison slowly diminishes and finally disappears altogether: the institutions for abandoned or indigent children, the orphanages (like Neuhof or Mesnil-Firmin), the establishments for apprentices (like the Bethléem de Reims or the Maison de Nancy); still farther away the factory-convents, such as La Sauvagère, Tarare and Jujurieu (where the girl workers entered about the age of thirteen, lived confined for years and were allowed out only under surveillance, received instead of wages pledged payment, which could be increased by bonuses for zeal and good behaviour, which they could use only on leaving). And then, still farther, there was a whole series of mechanisms that did not adopt the ‘compact’ prison model, but used some of the carceral methods: charitable societies, moral improvement associations, organizations that handed out assistance and also practised surveillance, workers’ estates and lodging houses – the most primitive of which still bear the all too visible marks of the penitentiary system.2 And, lastly, this great carceral network reaches all the disciplinary mechanisms that function throughout society.

And, moving still farther away from penality in the strict sense, the carceral circles widen and the form of the prison slowly diminishes and finally disappears altogether: the institutions for abandoned or indigent children, the orphanages (like Neuhof or Mesnil-Firmin), the establishments for apprentices (like the Bethléem de Reims or the Maison de Nancy); still farther away the factory-convents, such as La Sauvagère, Tarare and Jujurieu (where the girl workers entered about the age of thirteen, lived confined for years and were allowed out only under surveillance, received instead of wages pledged payment, which could be increased by bonuses for zeal and good behaviour, which they could use only on leaving). And then, still farther, there was a whole series of mechanisms that did not adopt the ‘compact’ prison model, but used some of the carceral methods: charitable societies, moral improvement associations, organizations that handed out assistance and also practised surveillance, workers’ estates and lodging houses – the most primitive of which still bear the all too visible marks of the penitentiary system.2 And, lastly, this great carceral network reaches all the disciplinary mechanisms that function throughout society. We have seen that, in penal justice, the prison transformed the punitive procedure into a penitentiary technique; the carceral archipelago transported this technique from the penal institution to the entire social body.

And then, still farther, there was a whole series of mechanisms that did not adopt the ‘compact’ prison model, but used some of the carceral methods: charitable societies, moral improvement associations, organizations that handed out assistance and also practised surveillance, workers’ estates and lodging houses – the most primitive of which still bear the all too visible marks of the penitentiary system.2 And, lastly, this great carceral network reaches all the disciplinary mechanisms that function throughout society. We have seen that, in penal justice, the prison transformed the punitive procedure into a penitentiary technique; the carceral archipelago transported this technique from the penal institution to the entire social body. With several important results.

Key Concepts

• Mettray, a punitive model, is at the limit of strict penality. It was the most famous of a whole series of institutions which, well beyond the frontiers of criminal law, constituted what one might call the carceral archipelago.
• Yet the general principles, the great codes and subsequent legislation were quite clear on the matter: no imprisonment ‘outside the law’, no detention that had not been decided by a qualified judicial institution, no more of those arbitrary and yet widespread confinements. Yet the very principle of extra-penal incarceration was in fact never abandoned.
• it was homogenized, through the mediation of the prison, on the one hand with legal punishments and, on the other, with disciplinary mechanisms.
• The frontiers between confinement, judicial punishment and institutions of discipline, which were already blurred in the classical age, tended to disappear and to constitute a great carceral continuum that diffused penitentiary techniques into the most innocent disciplines, transmitting disciplinary norms into the very heart of the penal system and placing over the slightest illegality, the smallest irregularity, deviation or anomaly, the threat of delinquency.
• A subtle, graduated carceral net, with compact institutions, but also separate and diffused methods, assumed responsibility for the arbitrary, widespread, badly integrated confinement of the classical age.
• there were colonies for poor, abandoned vagrant children (Petit-Bourg in 1840, Ostwald in 1842); there were almshouses for young female offenders who ‘recoiled before the idea of entering a life of disorder’, for ‘poor innocent girls whose mothers’ immorality has exposed to precocious perversity’, or for poor girls found on the doorsteps of hospitals and lodging houses.
• the factory-convents, such as La Sauvagère, Tarare and Jujurieu (where the girl workers entered about the age of thirteen, lived confined for years and were allowed out only under surveillance, received instead of wages pledged payment, which could be increased by bonuses for zeal and good behaviour, which they could use only on leaving).
• a whole series of mechanisms that did not adopt the ‘compact’ prison model, but used some of the carceral methods: charitable societies, moral improvement associations, organizations that handed out assistance and also practised surveillance, workers’ estates and lodging houses – the most primitive of which still bear the all too visible marks of the penitentiary system.
• And, lastly, this great carceral network reaches all the disciplinary mechanisms that function throughout society.
• We have seen that, in penal justice, the prison transformed the punitive procedure into a penitentiary technique; the carceral archipelago transported this technique from the penal institution to the entire social body.

Context

Second half of the passage, where Foucault moves from Mettray to the broader spread of carceral mechanisms, listing various nineteenth‑century institutions and arguing for a homogenized continuum that fuses legal punishment, extra‑legal confinement, and disciplinary practices into a generalized carceral network.