Reformers shifted punishment’s aim from expiation to prevention

Evidence

As to the end, or final cause of human punishments. This is not by way of atonement or expiation for the crime committed; for that must be left to the just determination of the supreme being …’ (Blackstone, 11). And in Pennsylvania, Buxton declared, the principles of Montesquieu and Beccaria should now have the ‘force of axioms’, that ‘the prevention of crimes is the sole end of punishment’ (Bradford, 3). So one punishes not to efface the crime, but to transform a criminal (actual or potential); punishment must bring with it a certain corrective technique. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 204

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the corrective-reformative conception of punishment as future-directed transformation rather than retroactive expiation.
• XREF: connects to: Reformers reframed punishment as protection rather than vengeance — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 489; European and American punishment was entirely reorganized in less than a century — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 42; Public executions failed to frighten the people and so reformers demanded their abolition — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 118 (+11 more)

Related

• Reform-era punishment was future-directed, aimed at prevention (similarity 0.92)
• Reformers reframed punishment as protection rather than vengeance (similarity 0.90)
• Reform punishment shifted example from sovereign display to economic obstacle (similarity 0.86)
• Punishment’s severity must aim at future prevention, not past harm (similarity 0.85)
• Penal reform sought not less punishment but more universal, deeper social control (similarity 0.84)
• Penal reform aimed to increase punishment’s effects while lowering its costs. (similarity 0.83)
• Reformers sought to redistribute punitive power throughout the whole social body. (similarity 0.82)
• Penal reform succeeded by managing illegalities differentially, not eliminating them (similarity 0.81)
• Modern universal imprisonment was not the reformers’ original design (similarity 0.80)
• European and American punishment was entirely reorganized in less than a century (similarity 0.80)
• Penal reform arose from a policy shift, not new humanitarian feeling (similarity 0.80)
• Late-nineteenth-century penal reforms shifted punishment from the offense to the offender (similarity 0.79)
• Penal codes keep stable while the substance judged shifts from crime to offender (similarity 0.79)
• Public executions failed to frighten the people and so reformers demanded their abolition (similarity 0.79)
• Penal reform shifted punishment from the act to the offender’s character (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Reform-era punishment was future-directed, aimed at prevention #corroborates (0.95) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 204
• Punishment shifted from sovereign vengeance to ensuring no crime goes unpunished #corroborates (0.80)
• Military punishment reform moved from spectacular severity toward certainty of punishment #expands (0.75)