ABSTRACT
Penology provides some of the constitutive work that gives form, sustenance, and permanence to the subordination of human agency to its product. Part of the constitutive process is not only to invoke and innovates discourse but also to construct categories, make distinctions, and draw contrasts. This chapter analyzes the discursive practices whose invocation constitutes both penology and the reality of prison life. It also analyzes the discursive practices as they are employed in debates that continue the construction of the phenomenon that is subject to analysis. The chapter outlines what an alternative direction might look like, one providing an opportunity for the development of a new “replacement discourse.” Beyond C. W. Mills’ pioneering discussion of language use as the motives for action, some rudimentary approaches to discourse analysis can be found in the criminological literature that shed insight on the development of a constitutive penology.
