ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the relationship between technology and the punitive, prior to establishing how technology conceived both as an art or, techne, as well as a material assemblage of people and things, has been brought together to deliver pain to people in various ways. It explores how technology has been differentially applied to the business of pain delivery. The chapter also explores how the application of technology to punishment underwent a radical transformation in the movement from pre-modern to more distinctively modern societies. It examines different orders of punitive assemblage. The chapter looks at relatively simple technologies of punishment; technologies which class as technical extensions to the existing human physical capacity to inflict pain. It also considers more refined punitive machines; those which have been carefully designed to extend punishment or render pain more intense. The chapter explains relatively simple punitive assemblages. It also explores how these more simple assemblages converge into more complex punitive assemblages at the social level.
