Reformers saw the convict as useful social property rather than waste
Evidence
The ideal would be for the convict to appear as a sort of rentable property: a slave at the service of all. Why would society eliminate a life and a body that it could appropriate? It would be more useful to make him ‘serve the state in a slavery that would be more or less extended according to the nature of his crime’ — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 178
Categorization
- XREF: The convict-as-rentable-property logic is the economic face of the panoptic distribution of bodies, connecting to Foucault’s later argument on the prison-industrial apparatus. — connects to: Reformers reframed punishment as protection rather than vengeance — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 489; Convict leasing was a rational tool of Southern industrialization, not a precapitalist throwback; Reformers shifted punishment’s aim from expiation to prevention — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 204 (+2 more)
Related
- Reformers reframed punishment as protection rather than vengeance (similarity 0.82)
- Penal reform shifted punishment from the act to the offender’s character (similarity 0.79)
- Reformers sought to redistribute punitive power throughout the whole social body. (similarity 0.79)
- Penal reform sought not less punishment but more universal, deeper social control (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Reformers reframed punishment as protection rather than vengeance
#expands(0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 489 - Penal reform sought not less punishment but more universal, deeper social control
#expands(0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 136 - Reformers shifted punishment’s aim from expiation to prevention
#expands(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 204 - Penal reform shifted punishment from the act to the offender’s character
#expands(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 160 - Convict leasing was a rational tool of Southern industrialization, not a precapitalist throwback
#expands(0.75)