The separation and the shift of focus from the body to the soul were early defining factors of the modern system. Coercive practices resulted in submissive criminals, with credit given to new techniques established by adapting and altering out-dated methods. Following this we see the transition to private and secret forms of punishment which was cut-off from public visibility. Sadly, the preoccupation of the reform blinded people to the inhumanity, suffering and pain being brought upon these so-called criminals. Whilst attempting to resolve this, a “reform” was created. This notion of power stirred amongst people who were ultimately discontent with the inefficiency of these structures. The point of this was the solidification of the power figures amongst their people.

Punishments were rather inhumane and gruesome methods of torture and execution which were “public spectacles”. The model of the prison is not yet a comprehendible result or solution in the beginning sections. At this point it is probably important to highlight that a better alternative to the concept of the penal timeline, is rather a cycle- thus making visible the state it was in at birth and plotting its journey to maturity. Here public torture and execution prevailed as the form of punishment.Īs aspects of society changed, especially power structures, so did this system of punishment- much like in an evolutionary manner. These roots begin in the seventeenth century. Much of this includes his aim which is to trace the penal system back to its roots in order to define and identify its significance in the present.

The just of his intentions for the book are presented in the first section. Michel Foucault’s, Discipline and Punish, provides the reader of the historical timeline which ends at the institution of imprisonment that most modern societies have adopted today. Order custom essay Focault- Discipline and Punish

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