Social Control essays

Social Control essays Most people in society have strong enough self-control to know what is right from what is wrong and what is honest and what isn't. A majority of society has thought about committing a crime at some point in their lives, but not everyone carries through with it. Only those with low self-control commit crime. Foucaults books are based on discipline and punish, which essentially maps the reformation of the power to punish, and the development of many different bodies of knowledge that strengthen and work together with that power. The modern power to punish is based on the management and organization of bodies in time and space, according to strict technical methods: the modern knowledge that Foucault describes is the knowledge that relates to human nature and behavior. Foucault's point is that one cannot exist without the other. The power and techniques of punishment depend on knowledge that classifies individuals, and that knowledge receives its authority from certain relation ships of power and domination. Discipline is a type of social control, which is a way of controlling the movement and operations of the body. It is a type of power that forces the body by bending and dividing up its movement, and the space and time in which it moves. The disciplines are the methods by which this control became possible. Foucault traces the beginning of discipline back to monasteries and armies. He is clear, however, that the concept changed in the eighteenth century. Discipline became a widely used technique to control whole populations. The modern prison, and the modern state, is impossible to think of without the control of bodies and movement. Many people still seem to criticize the way prisons are ran in todays society. They say that they are not disciplined enough in that they dont give them enough restrictions. People who criticize the failure of prisons miss the point. To explain this, ...