Foucault: Discipline

Discipline is a critical form of behavioral control. It's an area of knowledge: because knowledge and power are related: experts exercise power and create the discourse. Disciplinary power generates a mechanism of normalization by which people are modified and controlled. The individual conforms to the powers that exist in the: clinic, asylum, military academy, or prison. The application of human sciences is a fundamental part of discipline. The studying of mental patients, prisoners, and sexuality created an ambition to restructure the powers that dominated society at the time. Disciplinary power has three elements: hierarchical observation, normalizing judgment and examination.

Incarceration produces new kinds of people. Prison is an exchange of time for your crime and your status is emasculated. The aim is to deprive the individual of freedom and to reform him, to build him back up. The system of surveillance was introduced into prisons in the nineteenth century, based on Jeremy Bentham's panopticism. It is circle shaped with a central guard tower, and the inmates are being watched during every single aspect of their lives. This system allows them to become useful/good workers rather than just seeking retribution for their