Written in April, 2011
One of the main duty of the state is to secure its citizens in an order in which they live in safety and have their liberties and other fundamental rights which are arranged by law. Maintaining this order can be achieved by several ways including the punishing criminals who breach the law (Van den Haag, 1991, p.3). In this view, what is the purpose of punishment? It can be deterrence, transformation of criminals, revenge of the authoritarians or protecting community from evil people. The purpose of punishment has changed several times during the history due to changing conditions of communities and states. From the beginning of nineteenth century the aim of imprisonment as a punishment method was to change criminals to normal citizens. This essay will argue this issue in different aspects.
THE EMERGENCE OF IMPRISONMENT AS A PENALTY METHOD
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, crime was perceived as a rebellion against the sovereignty of the king and the main subject of the punishment was the human body. The punishment was the revenge of the king and torturing, flogging and public executions were the different kind of punishments which were enforced in a spectacle manner. It was like a ceremony, ritual or a festival where people watched the tortured body of condemned person. In this barbaric way, the pain of the body comprised the main component of the penalty and atrocities like pillory and scaffold enacted as a punishment for the vengeance of the king (Foucault, 1991, p.8-13). But by the beginning of the nineteenth century as Foucault pointed out: “the great spectacle of physical punishment was disappeared; the tortured body was avoided; the theatrical representation of pain was excluded from punishment. The age of sobriety in punishment had begun.”(Foucault, 1991, p.14) So, we should ask ourselves how and why the ways of penalty have changed. This issue will be explained in the following paragraphs.
“The growth of humanitarian ideals, it is argued, made imprisonment far more appealing than the hangings, floggings, burnings and mutilations which society had used as its answers to crime in the past. The spread of personal liberty made it possible to view the loss of liberty as a serious deterrent. The philosophy of Enlightenment aided the belief that at long last society could make punishment fit the crime by rationally assigning sentences of various lengths with the handy metric of time.” (Sykes, 2007, p.xxix)
Firstly, the economic and political dimensions and social conditions of the beginning of the nineteenth century should be scrutinized. Because that was the era of industrial revolution which has changed social life and relations between a state and its citizens in many ways and at the same time it was the era of consequences of French Revolution has newly emerged. The French Declaration stated basic and fundamental rights of people such as “fair trial, right to life, liberty etc.” in its articles. Secondly, the general increase in life standards and wealth of people, demographic expansion and increase in property, development of transportation and production of goods can be observed as main points of industrial revolution era. With those developments during industrial revolution the crime types, the nature of crime and ways of criminal behaviour and criminal life has changed. New economic crimes especially against property and new criminal techniques have emerged. Thirdly protest against public executions by reformers and philosophers also have an effect on the necessity of new punishment methods. To sum up, with basic human rights in political dimension with thoughts of philosophers, social and economical developments necessitate new methods of punishment.
The changing of methods in punishment is mostly related with the Enlightenment when there was an increase of humanization. Also the reformers of the Enlightenment, who were against the use of excessive force in penalties, insisted on more humanitarian ways of punishment. But “The main impetus underlying penal reform stems, in Foucault’s view, not from an enlightened form of rationality, but from the necessity to ensure a more efficient and rationalized legal and social field.”(McNay, 1996, p.91-92)
In the perspective of Foucault, the reform in punishment methods can be explained by new power relations. The distribution of power in more effective ways both in economic and political terms was the main target of penalty reform. The reform of punishment must be understood as a new regulation of power to punish which is based on better distribution. In political terms that reform provides more constant and efficient power by separating power to punish from arbitrary acts of monarchy. In this way the reform is not based on a new right to punish with new equal principles but it is based on distributional way of power, so there will not be a privileged body with power to punish. By this way the reform in penalty provide a birth to set up an economy of power by distributing it. According to Foucault the distribution of power was badly regulated due to kings, prosecution organs and judges had too much power. So reformers did not criticize the despotic manner of power, they criticized its economy by meaning of its distribution (Foucault, 1991, p.79-81).
In addition, according to Foucault the imprisonment system as a penalty was the last part of invention of disciplinary techniques. The disciplinary techniques have been used in schools, army, hospitals and workshops from the sixteenth and seventeenth century to control and regulate people’s behaviour. And the prison was the last step of disciplines to inspect, rule and surveillance of criminals (Lotringer, 1996, p.147). In this view the new regulations and reforms contributed to composing of new institution of disciplinary power. The prison as a disciplinary institution can be used to hold bodies and minds of inhabitants to produce “docile bodies” (McNay, 1996, p.92).
In his famous book “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison” Foucault argues that from the sixteenth century the disciplinary methods have been used in army, colleges, monasteries, hospitals, workshops and factories as a power to control people and to organize their behaviours by observing them individually. Subjection of human body was the main target of discipline. And those disciplinary techniques as a notion of punishment emerged in the nineteenth century provided the birth of imprisonment as a penal system.
There was a shift from atrocities, terror of armed law to gentle way of punishment. In other words, from violence and torture to surveillance in penalty. Foucault described a transformation in the target of punishment which reveals that it is the soul of aim of punishment but not the body anymore. With the birth of imprisonment the new aim of the penalty is the human soul rather than human body (Foucault, 1991, p.101).
TRANSFORMATION OF DEVIANTS TO USEFUL CITIZENS AND “PANOPTICON”
As Foucault stated: “penal imprisonment from the beginning of the nineteenth century covered both the deprivation of liberty and the technical transformation of individuals.” (Foucault, 1991, p.233) “In the early days of imprisonment, one of the main social functions it was intended to perform was to “transform” offenders into obedient subjects by subjecting them to the disciplinary techniques.”(Cavadino and Dignan, 2004, p.166)
Foucault argues that in the nineteenth century the retributive mentality of punishment was displaced by correctional understanding. Punishment was more humane and also the reintegrative understanding was the essence of penalty. Modern punishment methods were based on correctional techniques with the disciplinary practices (Valier, 2004, p.13-15).
In the nineteenth century the shift in the penalty styles was not about depth or strength of punishment. It must be evaluated in a wider perspective to understand that precautions are now aimed to influence soul rather than the body of offender. In the same way the main purpose of punishment has changed now as it aims to transform offenders to become better people rather than take revenge from them (Garland, 1990, p.136)
How can this transformation be achieved? In which ways the purpose of transformation can be achieved? Transformation of offenders is related with their minds. So we can accept that transformation is meant to change offender’s intent, behaviour and character and to affect offender’s wish. Because before the offender has committed the crime he has an intention or motivation which triggers him to commit the offence on his mind. So this transformation must change their intentions.
Although prison detains the body, it gives an access to soul. So in order to transform soul exercising, training, organizing the movements of inmates and observation to modify offender’s behaviour and manipulations are necessary (Garland, 1990, p.143).
In the light of preceding paragraphs, transformation can be achieved in a disciplinary manner by controlling, isolating, manipulating, organizing and observing of the offenders in prisons. So we can accept that discipline is the main component of the prison in order to achieve transformation. Because disciplinary power as Foucault has mentioned several times in his book “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison” provide an order to surveillance and regulating the individuals. All disciplinary mechanisms have their own rules and penalties. And prison as a disciplinary institution must have its own rules and regulations to transform offenders.
In this view Foucault states that: “this enclosed, segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded, in which an uninterrupted work of writing links the centre and periphery, in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined – all this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism.”(Foucault, 1991, p.197)
“The “Panopticon” model of Jeremy Bentham (15 February 1748 – 6 June 1832) designed in 1791 is seen by Foucault as the very epitome of his power-knowledge principles. It takes the form of a circular building, with individual cells around its perimeter whose windows and lighting are arranged so as to make their occupants clearly visible to the central inspection tower, though it remains opaque to them.” (Garland, 1990, p.146)
In this prison the guard who is in the tower, which is situated in a central position observes every inmates in their cells but inmates would not know whether they are being observed or not. So people in the cell presume that they are always observed by inspectors from the central tower. Moreover, in this prison there is no direct physical contact with the prisoners but there is a more gentle way of punishment. Also, in this prison power is preserved by the inspector or guard in the central tower and that power is not related with the guard who exercises it (Danaher, Schirato and Webb, 2010, p.53-54)
As Foucault mentioned, the disciplinary institution must be enclosed and there must be a timetable to regulate inmates’ behaviours and movements in a very detailed way. Inmates must act according to this timetable and must do their daily routınes in the way which is articulated in it. And inspectors must record and observe behaviours of the inmates in order to provide inmates’ self-controlling of themselves in a desired manner (Foucault, 1991, p.145-167). In this perspective “Panopticon” model as a prison which is also a disciplinary institution provides us necessary features to transform criminals. “Panopticon” is an enclosed circular building which provides isolation from the society and criminals are located one by one in their cells and they are constantly observed by guards from the central tower. Cells are visible to guards but there is unverifiability for the criminals that they never know whether they are supervised or not. And the timetable regulates the daily routines of the prisoners. Furthermore, prisoners have a mental isolation from the outside world and that enables them to rethink about crime in a spiritual way in their conscience.
In this “Panopticon” model of prison, prisoners have to perform some duties as a productive work. Those productive works must be exercised in a coherent way, so that in this consistent order with the regulation of productive work in the timetable prisoners obtain work habits. By keeping their working habits rationally, when they are released they will not return to committing crime again. Also this working activity must be collective and all prisoners must attend productive work so that the guards can observe and record their changing behaviours. The timetable must regulate prisoners working hours and other casual activities in a certain way with inflexible hours. The mentality underlying this issue is that the criminals commit crime because of their idleness so they must acquire rational working habits for transformation (Cavadino and Dignan, 2004, p.48).
In addition to this, prison must be a place where criminals can reconsider and examine their conscience in long hours with a lonely confinement. This spiritual atmosphere is necessary for the reform of prisoners. In order to emerge with a pure soul which is cleaned from sin and crime, prison must provide noiseless and solitary confinement (Mays, 1975, p.81). In this sense, Panopticon model which locates prisoners one by one to their cells provides us a mentally isolated place and also an uninterrupted exercise of power by guards. This isolation and uninterrupted exercise of power enables prisoners to get rid of bad opinions of crime and also enables them to go into themselves in order to get spiritual cleaning in the deep of their conscience.
“Prisons are concerned with fixing prisoners in terms of their abnormal status. Certainly, penal procedures tend to confirm prisoners as having a criminal identity.”( Danaher, Schirato and Webb, 2010, p.60) This criminal identity has its source from criminal’s background, family structure or his social environment. To change this criminal identity and provide criminals with reentering society after release, prisons must use disciplinary techniques in its own order with timetables and formal procedures and rules (Danaher, Schirato and Webb, 2010, p.60).
On this view an internal order is essential in prisons with scheduled works (taking of meals, counting of prisoners, working hours etc.), trainings, educations, uninterrupted observing and architectural designing. Also that internal order with disciplinary and correctional trainings, detailed of works together with a building needs a strict and constant exercising of disciplinary power. That reveals us internal order must be regarded in terms of “micro-physics” of power (Sparks, Bottoms and Hay, 2004, p.64).
CRITICIZE
Many of the prison punishments are in short durations. In short intervals such as 3 or 6 months how a treatment method transforms prisoners to useful citizens? So the aim of the prisons are mainly retributive not recidivistic. (Mays, 1975, 108-109)
In “Panopticon” model, one of the main reasons of its failure is the fear of heavily exploitation of prison labour because the private cells are suitable for exploitation and extortion. The transformation of criminals for reintegration to the society cannot be achieved in that way so that fee system and other methods of punishment reduced the use of prisons (Cavadino and Dignan, 2004, p.229)
According to Foucault, power means controlling and modifying behaviours and attitudes of criminals with disciplinary techniques. So the punishment means supervising and administrating of bodies within a disciplinary way. But Foucault could not argue power and punishment as a hypothesis to be investigated. There are factors which are more incentive than control and power in punishment methods. We cannot neglect other factors in the penal system. Economy, charity, forgiveness, vengeance .etc also shape the punishment methods (Garland, 1990, p.162-167).
How can we evaluate the prison’s performance in the term of transformation of criminals? Which standards must be applied? There is not any specific method to measure and evaluate the purpose of transformation of prisoners. Although the purpose of prison is transformation of criminals, prisons have always a retributive effect because it is a deprivation of liberty, service and social life. Moreover, due to expensive expenditure of prisons, new punishments such as parole, probation and fine replaced prison method for some types of crimes.
CONCLUSION
The changes in punishment methods, the abandonment of scaffolds, torture and public executions and developments of disciplinary institution for punishment as an incarceration method coincided with the industrial era and French Revolution. As we examined, the purpose of transformation of prisoners has emerged in this time. According to Foucault at this time the industrialization of social life necessitate the disciplinary institutions. Prison was the one of those disciplinary institutions. The purpose of prison was to transform criminals to useful citizens. As we explained this aim was tried to achieve by disciplinary techniques. Foucault, in his book, argues that “Panopticon” model can be used for disciplinary institutions such as schools, work houses, prisons and barracks but “Panopticon” as a prison model has not been used too much. Transformation of criminals is still a debate among the academicians and criminologists.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cavadino, M. and Dignan, J. (2004), The Penal System: An Introduction, London: SAGE
Danaher, G., Schirato, T. and Webb, J. (2010), Understanding Foucault, London: SAGE
Garland, D. (1990), Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory, Oxford: Clarendon
Foucault, M. (1991), Discipline And Punish: The Birth Of The Prison translated from the French by Alan Sheridan, London: Penguin Books
Mays, John B. (1975), Crime and Its Treatment, London: Longman
McNay, L. (1996), Foucault: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge: Polity Press
Sparks, R., Bottoms, Anthony E. and Will, H. (2004), Prison And The Problem Of Order , Oxford: Clarendon Press
Sylvlre, L. (1996), Foucault Live : (Interviews, 1961-1984) translated by Lysa Hochroth and John Johnston, New York: Semiotext(e)
Sykes, Gresham M. (2007), The society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison, Princeton, New Jersey; Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Valier, C. (2004), Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Culture, London: Routledge Van den Haag, E. (1991), Punishing Criminals, Lanham; London: University Press of America
One of the main duty of the state is to secure its citizens in an order in which they live in safety and have their liberties and other fundamental rights which are arranged by law. Maintaining this order can be achieved by several ways including the punishing criminals who breach the law (Van den Haag, 1991, p.3). In this view, what is the purpose of punishment? It can be deterrence, transformation of criminals, revenge of the authoritarians or protecting community from evil people. The purpose of punishment has changed several times during the history due to changing conditions of communities and states. From the beginning of nineteenth century the aim of imprisonment as a punishment method was to change criminals to normal citizens. This essay will argue this issue in different aspects.
THE EMERGENCE OF IMPRISONMENT AS A PENALTY METHOD
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, crime was perceived as a rebellion against the sovereignty of the king and the main subject of the punishment was the human body. The punishment was the revenge of the king and torturing, flogging and public executions were the different kind of punishments which were enforced in a spectacle manner. It was like a ceremony, ritual or a festival where people watched the tortured body of condemned person. In this barbaric way, the pain of the body comprised the main component of the penalty and atrocities like pillory and scaffold enacted as a punishment for the vengeance of the king (Foucault, 1991, p.8-13). But by the beginning of the nineteenth century as Foucault pointed out: “the great spectacle of physical punishment was disappeared; the tortured body was avoided; the theatrical representation of pain was excluded from punishment. The age of sobriety in punishment had begun.”(Foucault, 1991, p.14) So, we should ask ourselves how and why the ways of penalty have changed. This issue will be explained in the following paragraphs.
“The growth of humanitarian ideals, it is argued, made imprisonment far more appealing than the hangings, floggings, burnings and mutilations which society had used as its answers to crime in the past. The spread of personal liberty made it possible to view the loss of liberty as a serious deterrent. The philosophy of Enlightenment aided the belief that at long last society could make punishment fit the crime by rationally assigning sentences of various lengths with the handy metric of time.” (Sykes, 2007, p.xxix)
Firstly, the economic and political dimensions and social conditions of the beginning of the nineteenth century should be scrutinized. Because that was the era of industrial revolution which has changed social life and relations between a state and its citizens in many ways and at the same time it was the era of consequences of French Revolution has newly emerged. The French Declaration stated basic and fundamental rights of people such as “fair trial, right to life, liberty etc.” in its articles. Secondly, the general increase in life standards and wealth of people, demographic expansion and increase in property, development of transportation and production of goods can be observed as main points of industrial revolution era. With those developments during industrial revolution the crime types, the nature of crime and ways of criminal behaviour and criminal life has changed. New economic crimes especially against property and new criminal techniques have emerged. Thirdly protest against public executions by reformers and philosophers also have an effect on the necessity of new punishment methods. To sum up, with basic human rights in political dimension with thoughts of philosophers, social and economical developments necessitate new methods of punishment.
The changing of methods in punishment is mostly related with the Enlightenment when there was an increase of humanization. Also the reformers of the Enlightenment, who were against the use of excessive force in penalties, insisted on more humanitarian ways of punishment. But “The main impetus underlying penal reform stems, in Foucault’s view, not from an enlightened form of rationality, but from the necessity to ensure a more efficient and rationalized legal and social field.”(McNay, 1996, p.91-92)
In the perspective of Foucault, the reform in punishment methods can be explained by new power relations. The distribution of power in more effective ways both in economic and political terms was the main target of penalty reform. The reform of punishment must be understood as a new regulation of power to punish which is based on better distribution. In political terms that reform provides more constant and efficient power by separating power to punish from arbitrary acts of monarchy. In this way the reform is not based on a new right to punish with new equal principles but it is based on distributional way of power, so there will not be a privileged body with power to punish. By this way the reform in penalty provide a birth to set up an economy of power by distributing it. According to Foucault the distribution of power was badly regulated due to kings, prosecution organs and judges had too much power. So reformers did not criticize the despotic manner of power, they criticized its economy by meaning of its distribution (Foucault, 1991, p.79-81).
In addition, according to Foucault the imprisonment system as a penalty was the last part of invention of disciplinary techniques. The disciplinary techniques have been used in schools, army, hospitals and workshops from the sixteenth and seventeenth century to control and regulate people’s behaviour. And the prison was the last step of disciplines to inspect, rule and surveillance of criminals (Lotringer, 1996, p.147). In this view the new regulations and reforms contributed to composing of new institution of disciplinary power. The prison as a disciplinary institution can be used to hold bodies and minds of inhabitants to produce “docile bodies” (McNay, 1996, p.92).
In his famous book “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison” Foucault argues that from the sixteenth century the disciplinary methods have been used in army, colleges, monasteries, hospitals, workshops and factories as a power to control people and to organize their behaviours by observing them individually. Subjection of human body was the main target of discipline. And those disciplinary techniques as a notion of punishment emerged in the nineteenth century provided the birth of imprisonment as a penal system.
There was a shift from atrocities, terror of armed law to gentle way of punishment. In other words, from violence and torture to surveillance in penalty. Foucault described a transformation in the target of punishment which reveals that it is the soul of aim of punishment but not the body anymore. With the birth of imprisonment the new aim of the penalty is the human soul rather than human body (Foucault, 1991, p.101).
TRANSFORMATION OF DEVIANTS TO USEFUL CITIZENS AND “PANOPTICON”
As Foucault stated: “penal imprisonment from the beginning of the nineteenth century covered both the deprivation of liberty and the technical transformation of individuals.” (Foucault, 1991, p.233) “In the early days of imprisonment, one of the main social functions it was intended to perform was to “transform” offenders into obedient subjects by subjecting them to the disciplinary techniques.”(Cavadino and Dignan, 2004, p.166)
Foucault argues that in the nineteenth century the retributive mentality of punishment was displaced by correctional understanding. Punishment was more humane and also the reintegrative understanding was the essence of penalty. Modern punishment methods were based on correctional techniques with the disciplinary practices (Valier, 2004, p.13-15).
In the nineteenth century the shift in the penalty styles was not about depth or strength of punishment. It must be evaluated in a wider perspective to understand that precautions are now aimed to influence soul rather than the body of offender. In the same way the main purpose of punishment has changed now as it aims to transform offenders to become better people rather than take revenge from them (Garland, 1990, p.136)
How can this transformation be achieved? In which ways the purpose of transformation can be achieved? Transformation of offenders is related with their minds. So we can accept that transformation is meant to change offender’s intent, behaviour and character and to affect offender’s wish. Because before the offender has committed the crime he has an intention or motivation which triggers him to commit the offence on his mind. So this transformation must change their intentions.
Although prison detains the body, it gives an access to soul. So in order to transform soul exercising, training, organizing the movements of inmates and observation to modify offender’s behaviour and manipulations are necessary (Garland, 1990, p.143).
In the light of preceding paragraphs, transformation can be achieved in a disciplinary manner by controlling, isolating, manipulating, organizing and observing of the offenders in prisons. So we can accept that discipline is the main component of the prison in order to achieve transformation. Because disciplinary power as Foucault has mentioned several times in his book “Discipline and Punish: The Birth of Prison” provide an order to surveillance and regulating the individuals. All disciplinary mechanisms have their own rules and penalties. And prison as a disciplinary institution must have its own rules and regulations to transform offenders.
In this view Foucault states that: “this enclosed, segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded, in which an uninterrupted work of writing links the centre and periphery, in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined – all this constitutes a compact model of the disciplinary mechanism.”(Foucault, 1991, p.197)
“The “Panopticon” model of Jeremy Bentham (15 February 1748 – 6 June 1832) designed in 1791 is seen by Foucault as the very epitome of his power-knowledge principles. It takes the form of a circular building, with individual cells around its perimeter whose windows and lighting are arranged so as to make their occupants clearly visible to the central inspection tower, though it remains opaque to them.” (Garland, 1990, p.146)
In this prison the guard who is in the tower, which is situated in a central position observes every inmates in their cells but inmates would not know whether they are being observed or not. So people in the cell presume that they are always observed by inspectors from the central tower. Moreover, in this prison there is no direct physical contact with the prisoners but there is a more gentle way of punishment. Also, in this prison power is preserved by the inspector or guard in the central tower and that power is not related with the guard who exercises it (Danaher, Schirato and Webb, 2010, p.53-54)
As Foucault mentioned, the disciplinary institution must be enclosed and there must be a timetable to regulate inmates’ behaviours and movements in a very detailed way. Inmates must act according to this timetable and must do their daily routınes in the way which is articulated in it. And inspectors must record and observe behaviours of the inmates in order to provide inmates’ self-controlling of themselves in a desired manner (Foucault, 1991, p.145-167). In this perspective “Panopticon” model as a prison which is also a disciplinary institution provides us necessary features to transform criminals. “Panopticon” is an enclosed circular building which provides isolation from the society and criminals are located one by one in their cells and they are constantly observed by guards from the central tower. Cells are visible to guards but there is unverifiability for the criminals that they never know whether they are supervised or not. And the timetable regulates the daily routines of the prisoners. Furthermore, prisoners have a mental isolation from the outside world and that enables them to rethink about crime in a spiritual way in their conscience.
In this “Panopticon” model of prison, prisoners have to perform some duties as a productive work. Those productive works must be exercised in a coherent way, so that in this consistent order with the regulation of productive work in the timetable prisoners obtain work habits. By keeping their working habits rationally, when they are released they will not return to committing crime again. Also this working activity must be collective and all prisoners must attend productive work so that the guards can observe and record their changing behaviours. The timetable must regulate prisoners working hours and other casual activities in a certain way with inflexible hours. The mentality underlying this issue is that the criminals commit crime because of their idleness so they must acquire rational working habits for transformation (Cavadino and Dignan, 2004, p.48).
In addition to this, prison must be a place where criminals can reconsider and examine their conscience in long hours with a lonely confinement. This spiritual atmosphere is necessary for the reform of prisoners. In order to emerge with a pure soul which is cleaned from sin and crime, prison must provide noiseless and solitary confinement (Mays, 1975, p.81). In this sense, Panopticon model which locates prisoners one by one to their cells provides us a mentally isolated place and also an uninterrupted exercise of power by guards. This isolation and uninterrupted exercise of power enables prisoners to get rid of bad opinions of crime and also enables them to go into themselves in order to get spiritual cleaning in the deep of their conscience.
“Prisons are concerned with fixing prisoners in terms of their abnormal status. Certainly, penal procedures tend to confirm prisoners as having a criminal identity.”( Danaher, Schirato and Webb, 2010, p.60) This criminal identity has its source from criminal’s background, family structure or his social environment. To change this criminal identity and provide criminals with reentering society after release, prisons must use disciplinary techniques in its own order with timetables and formal procedures and rules (Danaher, Schirato and Webb, 2010, p.60).
On this view an internal order is essential in prisons with scheduled works (taking of meals, counting of prisoners, working hours etc.), trainings, educations, uninterrupted observing and architectural designing. Also that internal order with disciplinary and correctional trainings, detailed of works together with a building needs a strict and constant exercising of disciplinary power. That reveals us internal order must be regarded in terms of “micro-physics” of power (Sparks, Bottoms and Hay, 2004, p.64).
CRITICIZE
Many of the prison punishments are in short durations. In short intervals such as 3 or 6 months how a treatment method transforms prisoners to useful citizens? So the aim of the prisons are mainly retributive not recidivistic. (Mays, 1975, 108-109)
In “Panopticon” model, one of the main reasons of its failure is the fear of heavily exploitation of prison labour because the private cells are suitable for exploitation and extortion. The transformation of criminals for reintegration to the society cannot be achieved in that way so that fee system and other methods of punishment reduced the use of prisons (Cavadino and Dignan, 2004, p.229)
According to Foucault, power means controlling and modifying behaviours and attitudes of criminals with disciplinary techniques. So the punishment means supervising and administrating of bodies within a disciplinary way. But Foucault could not argue power and punishment as a hypothesis to be investigated. There are factors which are more incentive than control and power in punishment methods. We cannot neglect other factors in the penal system. Economy, charity, forgiveness, vengeance .etc also shape the punishment methods (Garland, 1990, p.162-167).
How can we evaluate the prison’s performance in the term of transformation of criminals? Which standards must be applied? There is not any specific method to measure and evaluate the purpose of transformation of prisoners. Although the purpose of prison is transformation of criminals, prisons have always a retributive effect because it is a deprivation of liberty, service and social life. Moreover, due to expensive expenditure of prisons, new punishments such as parole, probation and fine replaced prison method for some types of crimes.
CONCLUSION
The changes in punishment methods, the abandonment of scaffolds, torture and public executions and developments of disciplinary institution for punishment as an incarceration method coincided with the industrial era and French Revolution. As we examined, the purpose of transformation of prisoners has emerged in this time. According to Foucault at this time the industrialization of social life necessitate the disciplinary institutions. Prison was the one of those disciplinary institutions. The purpose of prison was to transform criminals to useful citizens. As we explained this aim was tried to achieve by disciplinary techniques. Foucault, in his book, argues that “Panopticon” model can be used for disciplinary institutions such as schools, work houses, prisons and barracks but “Panopticon” as a prison model has not been used too much. Transformation of criminals is still a debate among the academicians and criminologists.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cavadino, M. and Dignan, J. (2004), The Penal System: An Introduction, London: SAGE
Danaher, G., Schirato, T. and Webb, J. (2010), Understanding Foucault, London: SAGE
Garland, D. (1990), Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory, Oxford: Clarendon
Foucault, M. (1991), Discipline And Punish: The Birth Of The Prison translated from the French by Alan Sheridan, London: Penguin Books
Mays, John B. (1975), Crime and Its Treatment, London: Longman
McNay, L. (1996), Foucault: A Critical Introduction, Cambridge: Polity Press
Sparks, R., Bottoms, Anthony E. and Will, H. (2004), Prison And The Problem Of Order , Oxford: Clarendon Press
Sylvlre, L. (1996), Foucault Live : (Interviews, 1961-1984) translated by Lysa Hochroth and John Johnston, New York: Semiotext(e)
Sykes, Gresham M. (2007), The society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison, Princeton, New Jersey; Woodstock: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Valier, C. (2004), Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Culture, London: Routledge Van den Haag, E. (1991), Punishing Criminals, Lanham; London: University Press of America
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