Penal reform aimed to increase punishment’s effects while lowering its costs.

Evidence

The reform of criminal law must be read as a strategy for the rearrangement of the power to punish, according to modalities that render it more regular, more effective, more constant and more detailed in its effects; in short, which increase its effects while diminishing its economic cost (that is to say, by dissociating it from the system of property, of buying and selling, of corruption in obtaining not only offices, but the decisions themselves) and its political cost (by dissociating it from the arbitrariness of monarchical power). The new juridical theory of penality corresponds in fact to a new ‘political economy’ of the power to punish. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 135

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Punishment is designed to maximize apparent suffering while minimizing real pain. — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 15; Staged ceremony can substitute for added real punishment to deter others. — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 16; Disciplinary power aims at maximum effect at minimum cost and resistance. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 343 (+3 more)

Related

• Reform punishment shifted example from sovereign display to economic obstacle (similarity 0.88)
• Penal reform sought not less punishment but more universal, deeper social control (similarity 0.87)
• Penal reform succeeded by managing illegalities differentially, not eliminating them (similarity 0.87)
• Reformers sought to redistribute punitive power throughout the whole social body. (similarity 0.85)
• Reformers reframed punishment as protection rather than vengeance (similarity 0.85)
• Penal codes keep stable while the substance judged shifts from crime to offender (similarity 0.85)
• Punishment’s severity must aim at future prevention, not past harm (similarity 0.84)
• Penalty operates through the idea of pain, not pain itself (similarity 0.84)
• Reform-era punishment was future-directed, aimed at prevention (similarity 0.84)
• Penal reform arose from a policy shift, not new humanitarian feeling (similarity 0.83)
• Punishment is designed to maximize apparent suffering while minimizing real pain. (similarity 0.83)
• Penal reform shifted punishment from the act to the offender’s character (similarity 0.83)
• Reformers shifted punishment’s aim from expiation to prevention (similarity 0.83)
• Penal detention replaced public execution as a calculated technique for altering behavior. (similarity 0.81)
• Failed penal reform collapses back into harsher punishment (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Penal reform sought not less punishment but more universal, deeper social control #corroborates (0.86) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 136
• Reform punishment shifted example from sovereign display to economic obstacle #expands (0.78) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 153