Key Arguments

• In contrast to the classical period’s ‘confused, tolerant and dangerous domain of the “outlaw”’—an uncertain, marginal space where poverty, unemployment, fugitives, refusals of law and organized crime mingled by chance—the nineteenth century built ‘rigorous channels’ that, within the system, ‘inculcated docility and produced delinquency by the same mechanisms’.
• These mechanisms amount to a continuous disciplinary ‘training’ with both pedagogical and professional characteristics, from ‘assistance associations’ and ‘residential apprenticeships’ to penal colonies, disciplinary battalions, prisons, hospitals and almshouses.
• Foucault cites Moreau de Jonnès’s description of a coordinated apparatus of ‘benevolent establishments’ that follow the poor ‘from the cradle to the grave’, illustrating how the carceral network organizes a life‑course of institutionalization rather than excluding the indigent.
• He insists that ‘There is no outside’: the carceral ‘takes back with one hand what it seems to exclude with the other’, ‘saves everything, including what it punishes’, and ‘is unwilling to waste even what it has decided to disqualify’, indicating that even rejection is managed as inclusion within circuits of control.
• The delinquent is therefore not outside the legal order; from the outset he is ‘in the law, at the very heart of the law’, within mechanisms that gradually transfer individuals ‘from discipline to the law, from deviation to offence’.
• Foucault states that ‘delinquency is for the most part produced in and by an incarceration which, ultimately, prison perpetuates in its turn’: prison is simply ‘the natural consequence, no more than a higher degree, of that hierarchy laid down step by step’.
• He notes that convicts’ biographies often pass through all these institutions—which are supposedly meant to keep people away from prison—and that this very trajectory is taken as the ‘index of an irrepressibly delinquent “character”’, when in fact it is the result of the carceral’s ‘lines of force’.
• He explicitly reverses romantic images of the outlaw: criminality is ‘not on the fringes of society and through successive exiles’, but arises ‘by means of ever more closely placed insertions, under ever more insistent surveillance, by an accumulation of disciplinary coercion’.
• He concludes that ‘the carceral archipelago assures, in the depths of the social body, the formation of delinquency on the basis of subtle illegalities, the overlapping of the latter by the former and the establishment of a specified criminality’, making delinquency a structured outcome of dispersed disciplines.

Source Quotes

2. The carceral, with its far-reaching networks, allows the recruitment of major ‘delinquents’. It organizes what might be called ‘disciplinary careers’ in which, through various exclusions and rejections, a whole process is set in motion. In the classical period, there opened up in the confines or interstices of society the confused, tolerant and dangerous domain of the ‘outlaw’ or at least of that which eluded the direct hold of power: an uncertain space that was for criminality a training ground and a region of refuge; there poverty, unemployment, pursued innocence, cunning, the struggle against the powerful, the refusal of obligations and laws, and organized crime all came together as chance and fortune would dictate; it was the domain of adventure that Gil Blas, Sheppard or Mandrin, each in his own way, inhabited.

It organizes what might be called ‘disciplinary careers’ in which, through various exclusions and rejections, a whole process is set in motion. In the classical period, there opened up in the confines or interstices of society the confused, tolerant and dangerous domain of the ‘outlaw’ or at least of that which eluded the direct hold of power: an uncertain space that was for criminality a training ground and a region of refuge; there poverty, unemployment, pursued innocence, cunning, the struggle against the powerful, the refusal of obligations and laws, and organized crime all came together as chance and fortune would dictate; it was the domain of adventure that Gil Blas, Sheppard or Mandrin, each in his own way, inhabited. Through the play of disciplinary differentiations and divisions, the nineteenth century constructed rigorous channels which, within the system, inculcated docility and produced delinquency by the same mechanisms.

In the classical period, there opened up in the confines or interstices of society the confused, tolerant and dangerous domain of the ‘outlaw’ or at least of that which eluded the direct hold of power: an uncertain space that was for criminality a training ground and a region of refuge; there poverty, unemployment, pursued innocence, cunning, the struggle against the powerful, the refusal of obligations and laws, and organized crime all came together as chance and fortune would dictate; it was the domain of adventure that Gil Blas, Sheppard or Mandrin, each in his own way, inhabited. Through the play of disciplinary differentiations and divisions, the nineteenth century constructed rigorous channels which, within the system, inculcated docility and produced delinquency by the same mechanisms. There was a sort of disciplinary ‘training’, continuous and compelling, that had something of the pedagogical curriculum and something of the professional network.

Through the play of disciplinary differentiations and divisions, the nineteenth century constructed rigorous channels which, within the system, inculcated docility and produced delinquency by the same mechanisms. There was a sort of disciplinary ‘training’, continuous and compelling, that had something of the pedagogical curriculum and something of the professional network. Careers emerged from it, as secure, as predictable, as those of public life: assistance associations, residential apprenticeships, penal colonies, disciplinary battalions, prisons, hospitals, almshouses.

If he cannot work, he is placed on the list of the charity offices of his district, and if he falls ill he may choose between twelve hospitals … Lastly, when the poor Parisian reaches the end of his career, seven almshouses await his age and often their salubrious régime has prolonged his useless days well beyond those of the rich man’ (Moreau de Jonnès, quoted in Touquet). The carceral network does not cast the unassimilable into a confused hell; there is no outside. It takes back with one hand what it seems to exclude with the other. It saves everything, including what it punishes. It is unwilling to waste even what it has decided to disqualify. In this panoptic society of which incarceration is the omnipresent armature, the delinquent is not outside the law; he is, from the very outset, in the law, at the very heart of the law, or at least in the midst of those mechanisms that transfer the individual imperceptibly from discipline to the law, from deviation to offence.

It is unwilling to waste even what it has decided to disqualify. In this panoptic society of which incarceration is the omnipresent armature, the delinquent is not outside the law; he is, from the very outset, in the law, at the very heart of the law, or at least in the midst of those mechanisms that transfer the individual imperceptibly from discipline to the law, from deviation to offence. Although it is true that prison punishes delinquency, delinquency is for the most part produced in and by an incarceration which, ultimately, prison perpetuates in its turn.

In this panoptic society of which incarceration is the omnipresent armature, the delinquent is not outside the law; he is, from the very outset, in the law, at the very heart of the law, or at least in the midst of those mechanisms that transfer the individual imperceptibly from discipline to the law, from deviation to offence. Although it is true that prison punishes delinquency, delinquency is for the most part produced in and by an incarceration which, ultimately, prison perpetuates in its turn. The prison is merely the natural consequence, no more than a higher degree, of that hierarchy laid down step by step.

The prison is merely the natural consequence, no more than a higher degree, of that hierarchy laid down step by step. The delinquent is an institutional product. It is no use being surprised, therefore, that in a considerable proportion of cases the biography of convicts passes through all these mechanisms and establishments, whose purpose, it is widely believed, is to lead away from prison.

Conversely, the lyricism of marginality may find inspiration in the image of the ‘outlaw’, the great social nomad, who prowls on the confines of a docile, frightened order. But it is not on the fringes of society and through successive exiles that criminality is born, but by means of ever more closely placed insertions, under ever more insistent surveillance, by an accumulation of disciplinary coercion. In short, the carceral archipelago assures, in the depths of the social body, the formation of delinquency on the basis of subtle illegalities, the overlapping of the latter by the former and the establishment of a specified criminality. 3.

Key Concepts

• The carceral, with its far-reaching networks, allows the recruitment of major ‘delinquents’. It organizes what might be called ‘disciplinary careers’ in which, through various exclusions and rejections, a whole process is set in motion.
• In the classical period, there opened up in the confines or interstices of society the confused, tolerant and dangerous domain of the ‘outlaw’ or at least of that which eluded the direct hold of power
• Through the play of disciplinary differentiations and divisions, the nineteenth century constructed rigorous channels which, within the system, inculcated docility and produced delinquency by the same mechanisms.
• There was a sort of disciplinary ‘training’, continuous and compelling, that had something of the pedagogical curriculum and something of the professional network.
• The carceral network does not cast the unassimilable into a confused hell; there is no outside. It takes back with one hand what it seems to exclude with the other. It saves everything, including what it punishes. It is unwilling to waste even what it has decided to disqualify.
• the delinquent is not outside the law; he is, from the very outset, in the law, at the very heart of the law, or at least in the midst of those mechanisms that transfer the individual imperceptibly from discipline to the law, from deviation to offence.
• Although it is true that prison punishes delinquency, delinquency is for the most part produced in and by an incarceration which, ultimately, prison perpetuates in its turn.
• The delinquent is an institutional product.
• it is not on the fringes of society and through successive exiles that criminality is born, but by means of ever more closely placed insertions, under ever more insistent surveillance, by an accumulation of disciplinary coercion. In short, the carceral archipelago assures, in the depths of the social body, the formation of delinquency on the basis of subtle illegalities, the overlapping of the latter by the former and the establishment of a specified criminality.

Context

Numbered section ‘2.’ of ‘The carceral’, where Foucault contrasts the earlier figure of the outlaw and romantic marginality with the nineteenth‑century construction of life‑long disciplinary circuits, arguing that these institutional pathways fabricate delinquency and the delinquent.