Review: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of a Middle-Range Research Strategy

Author(s): Jonathan Simon

Review by: Jonathan Simon
Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 25, No. 3 (May, 1996), pp. 316-319
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2077440
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316

COATEMPORARYSOCOLOGY

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Theory,Cultureand Race. London:Routledge.

Discipline and Punish: The

Birthof a Middle-Range
Research Strategy
JONATHAN
SIMON

School of Law

Universityof Miami
Originalreview,CS 7:5 (September1978), by
StanleyCohen:

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the

Prison, by Michel Foucault. Trans. Alan

Sheridan.Pantheon Books, 1977. 333 pp.
$12.00 paper.ISBN:0-679-75255-2.

When the intellectualhistoryofour times

comes to be written,thatpeculiarly Left
Bank mixtureof Marxismand structuralismnow in fashionwillbe among themost
puzzling of our ideas to evaluate.... Of
such "historians"(a descriptionwhichdoes
deep channel of thought on the social
not really cover his method) Foucault is
significanceofpunishment(whose genealogy
the most dazzlinglycreative.
includes de Tocqueville and Durkheim) has

Towardtheend ofhis 1978 Contemporary been transformative(See Garland 1990).

Sociology review of Discipline and Punish,

StanleyCohen wrote that it "mustbe the

and revealinghistoryofthe
moststimulating
prisonsandpunishment
everwritten."
While
the book has been widelyread in sociology
generally,its influencein the narrowbut

Virtuallynothing written in the field since

has been able to ignore Foucault's startling
way of recountingthe place of the prison in
the self-interpretation
of modernity.
Discipline and Punish offereda stunning
reversal of the traditional empirical and

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CONTEMPORARYSOCIOLOGY
normative assumption that modern penality,
with its quasi-clinical prisons and humanscience expertise, was the result of a
progressive and humanistic evolution in
social consciousness away fromthe dungeon
and the scaffold. In its place, Foucault
provided an analysis of the colonization of
punishment by the disciplines, a family of
techniques forexercisingpower over individual and assembled bodies with a long history
in specialized institutionslike the monastery
and the militarycamp. According to Foucault, their emergence as a more general
technology of power was marked by the
transformation
of punishmentat the startof
the nineteenth century and, especially, the
rapid growth of the prison as the state
punishmentof choice.
Withinpenality,the disciplines promised a
fantasticextension of power. The offender
was spared the major and minor cruelties of
the body, but now was submittedto a more
rigorous and comprehensive control over
life. Social control abandoned recourse to
spasms of spectacular furyin favorof smooth
and continuous processes. The widespread
dispersal of the disciplines among social
institutionswas a crucial ingredient,according to Foucault, in the takeoffof modern
industrialcapitalism and democratic politics.
Foucault's points were not wholly original.
Nietzsche had long ago described the history
of punishmentas a central locus for creating
the obedient and hard-workinglastmen of
European society. Erving
nineteenth-century
Goffman(1961) described the prison as a
species of total institutionthatplayed a more
general role in the economy of social power
than the purposes of punishment might
describe. David Rothman had provided a
historyof Jacksoniansocial policy on crime
and dependency that reflected important
links between the strategy of reformative
confinementand the stirringsof democracy
and capitalism in post-RevolutionaryUnited
States.Likewise,Marx,Durkheim,and Weber
had all nodded toward the disciplines as
importantfeaturesof modernity.
But Discipline and Punish recast all these
themes amid brilliantlyinterpretedexamples
(albeit ones ungrounded in any systematic
historicalframework).While disputingsome
or even most of Foucault's substantiveclaims
in Discipline and Punish, scholarship on
punishment has been influenced in three

317

directions by the book and its model of

research. First, away from the observation
study of contemporarypenal practices and
toward a blending of historical subjects and
ethnographic forms of analysis. Foucault
focused forthe most part on the last portion
of the eighteenthcenturyand the firsthalfof
the nineteenth,yet few who read the book
missed the salience of the present. His use of
historical documents seemed far more akin
to the narratives of the ethnographers of
social control like Goffman Second, away
from a view of the prison as an ideological
systemoperatingprimarilythroughrepresentations on the individual and collective
imaginationand toward a view of the prison
as a surface for the effective exercise of
power over individual bodies and groups.
Third,away fromassuming a central role for
the state as the key actor in the evolution of
punishment,and toward a focus on technologies of power developed in state and
nonstate settings and circulating among
them.
When the firstU.S. edition of Discipline
and Punish appeared in 1977 it seemed
poised to have an influence on political
activismas well as on scholarship.Startingin
the 1960s, "labeling theory" had led many
criminologists to reappraise the expansive
claims of treatment-orientedpenology. A
New-Left criminology coming out of the
United Kingdom and the United States in the
late 1960s also succeeded in foregrounding
the class content of much of liberal penal
ideology. These academic critiques were
matched fora time by a wave ofprison unrest
and by the development of popular links
between prisoner groups and activistsrepresenting disempowered minorities on the
outside (Foucault participated in such a
nexus in France duringthe same period). By
the mid-1970s judges and state legislatures
opened themselvesto legal and philosophical
arguments about the penal system. Courts
dropped some of theirhistoricaldeference to
penal authority, and allowed prisoners,
throughtheir lawyers,to compel officialsto
explain and rationalize their decisions. A
number of states abandoned the indeterminate sentence and the very idea of rehabilitation. Both of these reform movements
responded to precisely the featuresof disciplinary punishment that Discipline and
Punish identified:the intrusivedemands to

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318

CONTEMPORARYSOCIOLOGY

penetrateinto the subjectivityof the of- tionthatwed themto problemsof interprefender;the legal power givento expertsto tation,wheredid thatleave the ambitionsof
sentences;the deceptivedenial social science to shape social policy?Disciindividualize
in penal pline and Punish galvanizedandtransformed
of the punitiveelementsremaining
even thisdiscussion,forseveralreasons.
practice.One prominentcriminologist
First,it was a book about the relationship
cited Foucaultin supportof his proposalto
restorecorporalpunishmentas a replace- betweenpower and social science. Second,
Foucault'smethodwas itselfa radicalformof
mentfortheprison(Newman1983).
that combined feaAlmosttwo decades later,littleremainsof culturalinterpretation
and phenomenolthe radicalpoliticsof prisoners'rightsor of turesofbothstructuralism
The shiftbystate ogy(DreyfusandRabinow1982), theleading
judicialdue processreform.
for sociologists
legislaturesaway from rehabilitationhas methodologicalalternatives
Third,
continued,but quicklyleaped over the kind seekinga path awayfrompositivism.
positionthatFoucault's the storythatDiscipline and Punish told
of ethicallibertarian
of the interpretive
in favorof a reversedthe assumptions
thoughtmighthave informed,
massive"gettough"approachthathas yetto critiqueof positivistsciences.Accordingto
author- Foucault,the constitutionof an objective
runitscourse.The peno-correctional
had as muchto do with
ities,whose foundationsof knowledgeand science ofhumanity
power Discipline and Punish describedso the deploymentof successfultechniquesof
have continuedto lose power,but power as it did with better intellectual
chillingly,
recent years have witnessedan unprece- models.Ifmedicinehas establisheditselfas a
with realscience,itwas,at leastinpart,because it
dented expansion of imprisonment,
more thanthree timesas manyAmericans has establishedstrategiesfor objectifying
behind bars as in 1977. The disciplinary humanbeings. Even as dubious a field as
hardunderwent
epistemological
has been criminology
ofoffenders
focuson normalization
replacedby the missionof providinglong- eningas it managedto anchoritselfin the
termwarehousingof populationswithlittle prison. AfterDiscipline and Punish, the
place in the economy(Cohen 1985, Feeley questionofwhethera truesocialsciencewas
and Simon 1992). The new systemshares possiblehad to be recognizedas a fundamenaboutpoliticalauthor- tallypoliticalquestion.
littleoftheskepticism
Discipline and Punish itselfcouldbe read,
recastingof
ity that a Foucault-inspired
however,as offeringits own ratherbald
penalitymighthave encouraged.
While punishment,
even afterDiscipline claims to be a kind of scientifictheory.
society."He
to most Foucaultwroteof "disciplinary
and Punish, is ofonlyminorinterest
a socialtheorythatput
on a partic- seemedto be offering
thebook'sinfluence
sociologists,
ularfieldis centralto itswiderinfluenceas a powerin thecentralplace occupiedin other
thatmovesto fundamental theoriesby class struggleor secularization.
researchstrategy
theoreticalquestionsabout social orderand FromthisreadingtheinfluenceofDiscipline
thin.The
subjectivitythroughspecificcontextsand and Punish has been surprisingly
Indeed, the influenceof Disci- theoryofpower,ifthereis one,has notbeen
institutions.
pline and Punish on sociologystemsdirectly widely elaborated or applied. Its critics
fromitspowerfulinternalcritiqueof penol- among social theoristshave raised serious
questionsas to whetherFoucault'stheory(or
ogy.
of it) can accountfor
Bythelate 1970s,stirredby theirreadings whattheyreconstruct
and enduringformsofdomination.
ofThomasKuhnon scientific
paradigms,
Farmoreinfluential,
however,isDiscipline
to
by bothforeignand domesticalternatives
Parsoniansocial theory,many sociologists and Punish as a model for an empirically
found themselvesengaged in a discussion engaged and politicallyrelevantform of
about the limitsof the scientificmodel of social theory.Foucaultwas philosophically
butDiscipline and Punish consisted
inquiry.Were human sciences capable of trained,
"normalscience"or were theydestinedto a largelyofprovocativeand revealinginterpreand notof
kind of permanentscientificrevolutionin tationsofpracticesanddiscourses,
which first principles remain open for highlyabstractanalyticprocedures.Morediscussionat all times?If the social sciences over, his account,especiallyin the era of
requireda distinctmethodologicalorienta- prisonpoliticalstruggle,had obvious rele-

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CONTFEMPORARYSOCIOLOGY 319
vance forstrategicpolitical thinking,not just
vague promises of validating norms. In this
sense, Discipline and Punish provides an
example of what mightbe called a postmodern version of middle-range theory. As a
model forhow to gain usefulpurchase on the
present, Discipline and Punish offered a
license forscholars to operate in the context
of specific institutionaland cultural fields,as
well as a set of methodological tactics for
deconstructingpolicies and institutionalprograms. Thus, it shared with Robert Merton's
(1968) quintessentiallyinfluentialversion of
middle-rangetheorya commitmentto engaging practices on the same scale practices
confrontpeople, and to focusing on effects
ratherthan ideologies.
What Foucault did not share with Merton
was the latter's aspiration of accumulating
regional explanations into a global one. In
that sense, and although he would have
rejected the term, his research model is a
postmodern one that accepts strategicif not
epistemological limitsto the scope of knowledge. Foucault should not be read as
rejecting macro frameworksin preference

for micro frameworks,but ratherof insisting

that the same voice not attemptto cover all
registers.His works can certainlybe stretched
into a kind of global social theory,but with
resultsthat seem surprisinglythin.It's worth
noting that almost all of Foucault's work
situates itself at the level of particular
institutions,and it is here thathis insightsare
sharpest and most effective.In that sense,
Discipline and Punish really is a book about
the birthof the prison.

References
Cohen, Stanley (1985). Visions of Social Control:
Crime,Punishment,and Classification.New York:
Polity.
Dreyfus,HubertL. and Paul Rabinow (1982). Michel
Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics.Chicago,IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Feeley, Malcolm and JonathanSimon (1992). "The
New Penology:Notes on the EmergingStrategyof
Correctionsand its Implications,"30 Criminology

449.

Garland, David (1990). Punishment and Modern

Society:A Studyin Social theory.Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press.
Newman,Graeme (1983). Just and Painful: A Case
for CorporalPunishment.New York:MacMillan.

Prometheus Rebounds
HARRIET FRIEDMANN

Erindale College,Universityof Toronto

Original review, CS 4:3 (May 1975), by
Michael Hechter:

The Modern World Systemis a visionary

work ... more an aestheticcreation than
a scientificone.... This may be one of
the most important theoretical statements about development since the time
of Max Weber.

TheModemn
World-System:
CapitalistAgricultureand theOriginsof theEuropean Worldeconomyin theSixteenthCentury,
Vol. 1, by
Immanuel Wallerstein.New York:Academic
Press[1976] 1980. 244 pp. $65.00 cloth.ISBN:
0-12-78595-X.$40.00 paper. ISBN: 0-12785924-1.

Almosta decadeafter
volume1 ofTheMod- leadershipinitiatedin 1974 by his remarkable
ern World-System
Waller- studyof the sixteenthcentury.
(TMWS), Immanuel
stein(1983:75) wrote,"Historicalcapitalism Wallerstein in 1974 forged a deeply
has been, we know, Prometheanin its aspira- influentialperspective by mergingAmerican
tions." The same can be said for Immanuel sociology with French social history. His
Wallerstein.More than two decades ago he importationof the Annales school into U.S.
opened questions later blazed across head- sociology compares with Parsons's early
lines, and the subject of fast-breedingaca- importationof Max Weber. He reconnected
demic journals.Ifsociologyhas keptpace with American sociology with a boldly original
"globalization"of the world economy, it is to elaboration of themes fromEuropean scholthe credit of the institutionaland intellectual arship.His accomplishmentreflecteda unique

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