Universidad de Santiago

The carceral

Similarities between the prison and school

Constanza Rojas B.

Anlisis y redaccin de ensayos

Gabriel Romero

April 28th, 2016

Introduction

Discipline and punishment, two common words in our everyday lexicon, are concepts that

have been present in our society for a long time. We live in a society ruled by discipline and

punishment, and we can see that it is controlled and regulated by institutions of all sorts,

such as prisons, the military, schools and hospitals. So, In many ways, the education

system, and more specifically, the school, is similar to the carceral system, since it shares a

lot of characteristics.

First of all, both the carceral system and school share a common basic structure, they are

hierarchized institutions which have a head in charge who sees everything and then people

with less rank that perform similar tasks. Foucault said in an interview that Prison is not

unique. It is positioned within the disciplined society, the society of generalized

surveillance in which we live. What is so astonishing, Foucault asks, about the fact that our

prisons resemble our factories, schools, military bases, and hospitals-all of which in turn

resemble prisons?" (1975), For instance, at prisons we can found a governor as the head,

whereas in schools we can found a headmaster. Also, as in prisons are wardens, in schools

are janitors who keep an eye. Besides, both institutions have as ultimate goal, to modify

behavior through rules that must not ever be broken, otherwise punishments would be

given.

So, as I mentioned before, wardens are constantly monitoring the inmates and in the case of

schools, to the students. Fred Alford argues that The panopticon is the carceral superego,

omnipresent but strangely invisible, so that one never knows for sure when one is being
observed, only that there is no moment in which one could not be. (129). Therefore, the

fact of being observed every time creates a state of awareness, or an atmosphere of

consciousness that encourages having a good conduct.

Finally, both institutions have strict schedules that must be achieved to maintain order and

discipline.

Conclusion

As we follow rules and we are forced to be disciplined, and we are getting conditioned to

behave in certain ways. That procedure not only happens at prison but school, because both

have similar methods of conditioning and giving us learnings and lessons, through

discipline and punishment.

Bibliography

Cain, William E., Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John McGowan and Jeffrey J.

Williams. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W. W. Norton &

Company, Inc, (2001): 1637-1638. Print.

Pol Droit, Roger. Michel Foucault, on the Role of Prisons. The New York Times. 2007. Web.

15 Apr. 2016.

Alford, C. Fred. What Would It Matter If Everything Foucault Said About Prison Were

Wrong? "discipline and Punish" After Twenty Years. Theory and Society 29.1 (2000):

125146. Web 15 Apr. 2016.