Michel Foucault

In the Middle Ages there were gaols and dungeons, but punishment was for the most part a spectacle. The economic changes and growing popular dissent of the 18th century made necessary a more systematic control over the individual members of society, and this in effect meant a change from punishment, which chastised the body, to reform, which touched the soul. Foucault shows the development of the Western system of prisons, police organizations, administrative and legal hierarchies for social control - and the growth of disciplinary society as a whole. He also reveals that between school, factories, barracks and hospitals all share a common organization, in which it is possible to control the use of an individual's time and space hour by hour.

The Birth of the Prison

Discipline and Punish

Roel Christian Yambao

Stefano Zorzi

 Il supplizio non ristabiliva la giustizia, rlattivava il potere. Nel secolo XVII, e ancora all'inizio del XVIII, esso non era dunque, con tutto il suo spettacolo di ter- rore, il residuo non ancora cancellato di un'altra età. I suoi accanimenti, il suo splendore, la violenza corporale, un gioco smisurato di forze, un cerimoniale accurato, in breve tutto il suo apparato, si inscriveva nel funzionamento politico della penalità.

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