Imprisonment has always retained a hidden element of physical pain

Evidence

But a punishment like forced labour or even imprisonment – mere loss of liberty – has never functioned without a certain additional element of punishment that certainly concerns the body itself: rationing of food, sexual deprivation, corporal punishment, solitary confinement. Are these the unintentional, but inevitable, consequence of imprisonment? In fact, in its most explicit practices, imprisonment has always involved a certain degree of physical pain. The criticism that was often levelled at the penitentiary system in the early nineteenth century (imprisonment is not a sufficient punishment: prisoners are less hungry, less cold, less deprived in general than many poor people or even workers) suggests a postulate that was never explicitly denied: it is just that a condemned man should suffer physically more than other men. It is difficult to dissociate punishment from additional physical pain. What would a non-corporal punishment be? — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 52

Categorization

• XREF: Questions how much the body is actually abandoned in ‘non-corporal’ systems — parallels the reader’s question of whether surveillance can ever be non-corporal, since every observation lands on a body. — connects to: Penal power shifted its target from the body to the mind — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 162; Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 155; Modern punishment targets liberty, not bodily pain — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 46 (+1 more)

Related

• Modern punishment targets liberty, not bodily pain (similarity 0.85)
• Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself (similarity 0.81)
• Modern punishment targets the soul rather than the body (similarity 0.81)
• Painless execution drugs are the logical terminus of non-corporal penality (similarity 0.81)
• Penal power shifted its target from the body to the mind (similarity 0.80)
• The reformed penalty shifted its target from the body to subtler suffering (similarity 0.80)
• Modern penality’s ideal is endless observation rather than spectacular punishment (similarity 0.80)
• The public spectacle of punishment gave way to enclosed hierarchized detention within decades. (similarity 0.80)
• The rise of the prison institutionalized the power to punish (similarity 0.79)
• The guillotine aimed to punish a juridical abstraction rather than a pain-feeling body (similarity 0.79)
• The carceral regime extracts knowledge that converts punishment into a productive operation. (similarity 0.79)
• The criminal’s soul is itself judged and punished, not merely analyzed (similarity 0.79)
• The prison is totalizing and unceasingly disciplinary, with no exterior (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Penal power shifted its target from the body to the mind #qualifies (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 162
• Modern punishment targets liberty, not bodily pain #qualifies (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 46
• Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself #qualifies (0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 155
• Invisible inspection can awe prisoners to silence without any physical restraint #qualifies (0.72) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 288