The prison and the delinquent are mutually produced in a single technological ensemble

Evidence

The penitentiary technique and the delinquent are in a sense twin brothers. It is not true that it was the discovery of the delinquent through a scientific rationality that introduced into our old prisons the refinement of penitentiary techniques. Nor is it true that the internal elaboration of penitentiary methods has finally brought to light the ‘objective’ existence of a delinquency that the abstraction and rigidity of the law were unable to perceive. They appeared together, the one extending from the other, as a technological ensemble that forms and fragments the object to which it applies its instruments. … It is now this delinquency, this anomaly, this deviation, this potential danger, this illness, this form of existence, that must be taken into account when the codes are rewritten. Delinquency is the vengeance of the prison on justice. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 390

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The core Foucault move — the object of study (delinquency) is co-produced by its own apparatus of knowledge/punishment, an insight that unsettles the standard science-first narrative and applies broadly beyond penology.
• XREF: Connects directly to the panopticon thesis: the telescreen produces the self-policing subject just as the prison produces the delinquent — object and observer emerge together. — connects to: The penitentiary apparatus substitutes the delinquent for the offender. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 386; Prisons function as schools of crime and organized delinquency — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 405; Police, prison, and delinquency form a self-reinforcing circuit producing delinquents — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 432 (+2 more)

Related

• Police, prison, and delinquency form a self-reinforcing circuit producing delinquents (similarity 0.92)
• The penitentiary apparatus substitutes the delinquent for the offender. (similarity 0.90)
• The prison’s apparent failure is actually its designed success at producing delinquency (similarity 0.89)
• Classifying the delinquent as a pathological subject is inseparable from politically isolating delinquency (similarity 0.89)
• Fabricating delinquency gave criminal justice authority through a scientific horizon of truth (similarity 0.86)
• Prisons function as schools of crime and organized delinquency (similarity 0.84)
• Penitentiary technique judges the criminal’s affinity with crime, not the act itself (similarity 0.83)
• The prison’s failure, reform, and discipline form one simultaneous carceral system (similarity 0.83)
• The prison’s failures were denounced at its very inception (similarity 0.80)
• The rise of the prison institutionalized the power to punish (similarity 0.80)
• Prisons resemble schools, factories, and hospitals because one disciplinary model unifies them (similarity 0.79)
• Reform has always been proposed as the remedy for the prison’s failure (similarity 0.79)
• The prison’s disciplinary excess over legal detention was present from its birth (similarity 0.79)
• Punishment doubled into an object relation producing the criminal as a known individual (similarity 0.79)
• Prisoner behavior control generated a continuous individualizing knowledge (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Police, prison, and delinquency form a self-reinforcing circuit producing delinquents #corroborates (0.95) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 432
• The prison’s failure, reform, and discipline form one simultaneous carceral system #corroborates (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 418
• The prison’s apparent failure is actually its designed success at producing delinquency #corroborates (0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 425
• Prisons function as schools of crime and organized delinquency #expands (0.82) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 405