While I agree with Foucault that a visual component can have great effect upon people, this aspect should come in the form of a thorough education in a class such as this in contrast to a common spectacle associated with excitement and merrymaking.

Instead of being dehumanized, they should be made relatable to the common person so one could imagine their own abhorrence to such a situation. Criminals are not deserving of society’s center stage. The scenes of blood and gore were viewed by all, and Foucault ignores the fact that the corporal consequences were often much more despicable than the initial crime committed. It is my belief that the long-ago methods of theatrical amande honorable are not an effective penal measure because they turned criminal punishment into a celebratory affair. Would it not be effective to scare potential wrongdoers into righteousness with horrific public scenes of pain and slow death of local criminals? However, in careful consideration, there are a multitude of flaws in Foucault’s sentiments. At first, Foucault’s concern over a system in which criminal justice takes place mostly behind closed doors makes sense. He subtly denounces the rigid yet humane schedules applied to contemporary imprisonment and the growing distance between the judicial system and the punishment of prisoners. In Michel Foucault’s Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison, the author revels in tales of past penal methods involving brutal torture of the convicted criminal as a popular public spectacle.

Michel foucault punishment