Michel Foucault claims that the aim of punishment has shifted from the body to the soul. Since the end of the use of torture, punishment has become less and less of a public spectacle. It seems that punishment is becoming more removed from the public eye, and more of a 'behind-closed-doors' phenomenon - ie, it is attempting to move into the private sphere, working on the soul, the private aspect of the individual, versus the body, the aspect susceptible to public scrutiny. In terms of rehabilitation and punishment, is it more effective to work on the individual via the soul through the prison system - the disciplined routines, the limited liberties, the constant observation - or the body through torture?
2 comments:
Yes, and if one is more efficient than the other, why is it more efficient? And if one was more efficient in the past and the other more efficient in the present, what might account for this difference.
What's interesting to me is that the mental health of an inmate is affected by incarceration, especially in the case of those in solitary confinement. Incarceration has real and sometimes devastating effects on the condition of the mind-- many people that enter the prison system wind up with mental illness, even though they never had any such problems before they went in. So it would seem that psychological torture is ever present, and indeed is an integral part of our prison system. It seems to me that the damage is as real as any physical punishment. Even those that escape mental illness are mentally scarred by the experience of being in prison, and have trouble acclimating to society upon release.
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