The carceral regime extracts knowledge that converts punishment into a productive operation.

Evidence

The prison has not only to know the decision of the judges and to apply it in terms of the established regulations: it has to extract unceasingly from the inmate a body of knowledge that will make it possible to transform the penal measure into a penitentiary operation; which will make of the penalty required by the offence a modification of the inmate that will be of use to society. The autonomy of the carceral regime and the knowledge that it creates make it possible to increase the utility of the penalty, which the code had made the very principle of its punitive philosophy: ‘The governor must not lose sight of a single inmate, because in whatever part of the prison the inmate is to be found, whether he is entering or leaving, or whether he is staying there, the governor must also justify the motives for his staying in a particular classification or for his movement from one to another. He is a veritable accountant. Each inmate is for him, in the sphere of individual education, a capital invested with penitentiary interest’ (Lucas, II, 449–50). As a highly efficient technology, penitentiary practice produces a return on the capital invested in the penal system and in the building of heavy prisons. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 384

Categorization

• XREF: The notion of the prisoner as ‘capital invested with penitentiary interest’ resonates with the reader’s interest in surveillance producing utility — and with Orwell’s Oceania where even thought yields extractable value. — connects to: Penal justice entrapped itself by entering relations of knowledge. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 381; Carceral power is naturalized by borrowing the rationality of curing and educating — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 462; Punishment doubled into an object relation producing the criminal as a known individual — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 163

Related

• Penal justice entrapped itself by entering relations of knowledge. (similarity 0.88)
• Carceral power is naturalized by borrowing the rationality of curing and educating (similarity 0.87)
• The rise of the prison institutionalized the power to punish (similarity 0.84)
• The penitentiary apparatus substitutes the delinquent for the offender. (similarity 0.83)
• The prison’s disciplinary excess over legal detention was present from its birth (similarity 0.81)
• Penalties target the inmate’s transformation, not the exchange value of the crime (similarity 0.81)
• Punishment doubled into an object relation producing the criminal as a known individual (similarity 0.81)
• Penitentiary technique judges the criminal’s affinity with crime, not the act itself (similarity 0.81)
• Classifying the delinquent as a pathological subject is inseparable from politically isolating delinquency (similarity 0.80)
• Penal labour’s real purpose is power relations, not production or skills (similarity 0.80)
• Penal reform shifted punishment from the act to the offender’s character (similarity 0.80)
• Prison integrated correctional transformation into legal detention from the start (similarity 0.79)
• The prison’s failure, reform, and discipline form one simultaneous carceral system (similarity 0.79)
• Penal labour reshapes convicts mechanistically into docile, regularized workers (similarity 0.79)
• Imprisonment has always retained a hidden element of physical pain (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Penal justice entrapped itself by entering relations of knowledge. #corroborates (0.90) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 381
• Punishment doubled into an object relation producing the criminal as a known individual #expands (0.88) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 163
• Carceral power is naturalized by borrowing the rationality of curing and educating #expands (0.82) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 462