Penalties target the inmate’s transformation, not the exchange value of the crime

Evidence

The length of the penalty must not be a measurement of the ‘exchange value’ of the offence; it must be adjusted to the ‘useful’ transformation of the inmate during his term of imprisonment. It is not a time-measure, but a time finalized. The form of the operation, rather than the form of the wages. … The correct duration of the penalty must be calculated, therefore, not only according to the particular crime and its circumstances, but also according to the penalty itself as it takes place in actual fact. This amounts to saying that, although the penalty must be individualized, it is so not on the basis of the individual-offender, the juridical subject of his act, the responsible author of the offence, but on the basis of the individual punished, the object of a supervised transformation, the individual in detention inserted in the prison apparatus, modified by it or reacting to it. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 374

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Profitability, not severity, is the surest test of prisoner reformation — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 192; Prison wages act as a fiction measuring moral transformation, not production — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 370; Penitentiary technique judges the criminal’s affinity with crime, not the act itself — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 388 (+9 more)

Related

• Prison wages act as a fiction measuring moral transformation, not production (similarity 0.88)
• Penitentiary technique judges the criminal’s affinity with crime, not the act itself (similarity 0.87)
• Penal reform shifted punishment from the act to the offender’s character (similarity 0.87)
• The penitentiary apparatus substitutes the delinquent for the offender. (similarity 0.83)
• Penal codes keep stable while the substance judged shifts from crime to offender (similarity 0.83)
• The carceral regime extracts knowledge that converts punishment into a productive operation. (similarity 0.81)
• The shift from spectacle to carceral punishment was a technical mutation, not a softening (similarity 0.81)
• Profitability, not severity, is the surest test of prisoner reformation (similarity 0.80)
• Ghent’s penal house reframed punishment as the economic reconstruction of the lazy into workers (similarity 0.80)
• Prison integrated correctional transformation into legal detention from the start (similarity 0.79)
• The respectful ‘humanity’ of the criminal became the target of correction (similarity 0.79)
• Penal reform aimed to increase punishment’s effects while lowering its costs. (similarity 0.79)
• Penal labour reshapes convicts mechanistically into docile, regularized workers (similarity 0.79)
• The rise of the prison institutionalized the power to punish (similarity 0.78)
• Punishment’s severity must aim at future prevention, not past harm (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Penitentiary technique judges the criminal’s affinity with crime, not the act itself #corroborates (0.95) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 388
• Penal reform shifted punishment from the act to the offender’s character #corroborates (0.90) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 160
• Well-designed punishment converts crime from glory into misfortune requiring re-education #expands (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 184