ABSTRACT
This chapter emphasizes that Foucault's work is not a system made up of neatly organized concepts with static definitions: it is better characterized as a style of analysis. Foucault's work on avowal, when combined with his very different work on the disciplinary techniques used in correctional institutions, can help us take a step back and put in question authorities' obsession with enlisting the very person who is accused of doing or being something undesirable in the process of establishing the official truth. If the criminal law has traditionally dealt in 'acts', criminology developed in large part as an inquiry not so much into particular acts as into persons. Now, Foucault famously argued that sexuality is a very important if not the most important site for the elaboration of modern truths about persons. One intellectual enterprise that, from a totally non-Foucaultian perspective, radically displaces and de-centres acts, persons and institutions is indigenous thought on justice and law.
