Jeremy Bentham’s concept of the Panopticon further elaborated Disciplinary power. The development of norms occur like this.

3 elements of disciplinary power include hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment, and examination while the main instruments of power include the gaze and observation. By means of discipline, individuals can be created out of mass.

Developments of discipline, in the 17th century and 18th century, paved the road for the preparation of prison. However, numerous differences existed between this and the former, punitive city. When the prison was not imaginable as a penalty, to overcome resistance towards it, 3 new models of penalty assisted. They were indifferent to the welfare of the prisoners and demanded a more efficient operation of power. The 18 th century reformers upheld a proposal of a theatre of punishment where a complicated system of representations and signs were displayed openly. The authority and the power of the king were re-established by means of public execution. The role of the audience was great in these rituals. Punishment was like a ritual and was directed at the prisoner’s body in a ceremonial manner. For criminal investigations, torture was resorted to. Foucault examined the pre 18th-century situation – a time when public execution and corporal punishments were the primary forms of punishment.

Foucault sought to study punishment in the context of society and figure out how power relations impact Punishment with the change of time. This book offers a historical account of the modern/western penal system. Summary of “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison “ Foucault did not accept the labels assigned to him like “structuralist” and “postmodernist”. His theories are essentially concerned with the relationship between power and knowledge and the ways in which they perform a function of social control by means of societal institutions. Book Review on “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison” by Michel Foucaultįoucault was a 20th-century French philosopher, literary critic, political activist, and writer.

Michel foucault on prisons