The penal apparatus morally reeducated the poor into legalism

Evidence

Erecting the barrier to separate delinquents from all the lower strata of the population from which they sprang and with which they remained linked has been a difficult task, especially no doubt in urban milieux. It has been a long and arduous undertaking. It has involved the use of the general principles of the ‘moralization’ of the poorer classes that elsewhere has had such crucial importance both from an economic and a political point of view (the acquisition of what might be called a ‘basic legalism’, which was indispensable from the time when custom was replaced by the system of the code; learning the elementary rules of property and thrift; training in docility at work, in stability of residence and of the family, etc.). — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 436

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Basic legalism’ — the internalized respect for legal codes replacing customary norms — defined here as key.
• XREF: connects to: The prison was conceived as an apparatus for transforming human beings — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 506; Reformers designed punishment as a public didactic spectacle for all citizens — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 183; The prison cell reworks a Christian monastic technique toward state-directed moral conversion. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 199 (+4 more)

Related

• The rise of the prison institutionalized the power to punish (similarity 0.87)
• The prison was conceived as an apparatus for transforming human beings (similarity 0.83)
• Prison integrated correctional transformation into legal detention from the start (similarity 0.83)
• The prison cell reworks a Christian monastic technique toward state-directed moral conversion. (similarity 0.82)
• The penitentiary apparatus substitutes the delinquent for the offender. (similarity 0.82)
• Carceral power is naturalized by borrowing the rationality of curing and educating (similarity 0.81)
• The respectful ‘humanity’ of the criminal became the target of correction (similarity 0.80)
• Penal codes keep stable while the substance judged shifts from crime to offender (similarity 0.80)
• Penal reform shifted punishment from the act to the offender’s character (similarity 0.80)
• Penal reform arose from a policy shift, not new humanitarian feeling (similarity 0.80)
• Penal reform sought not less punishment but more universal, deeper social control (similarity 0.80)
• Lower classes rejected penal justice and intervened physically at its public sites (similarity 0.79)
• Modern universal imprisonment was not the reformers’ original design (similarity 0.79)
• Penal reform aimed to increase punishment’s effects while lowering its costs. (similarity 0.79)
• The prison’s disciplinary excess over legal detention was present from its birth (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• The prison was conceived as an apparatus for transforming human beings #expands (0.88) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 506
• The rise of the prison institutionalized the power to punish #expands (0.88) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 209
• The prison cell reworks a Christian monastic technique toward state-directed moral conversion. #expands (0.82) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 199
• Reformers designed punishment as a public didactic spectacle for all citizens #expands (0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 183