ABSTRACT
In contrast to the seamless, teleological logic of modernity, M. Foucault makes no attempt to weave his theories into a single all-encompassing account of society. As Foucault points out, imprisoning offenders is a far more complex and governmentally significant process than the simple removal of the socially undesirable from public circulation for fixed periods of time. Foucault raises severalimportant points, all of which are relevant to traditional arguments concerning modernity. The first is that the final model does not constitute an inevitable teleological advancement in both social governance in general, or in the regulation of criminals in particular. The second point is that this new form of governance had implications far beyond the boundaries of the prison. Foucault applies all the arguments in his most famous text, an analysis of the greatest of all modernist systems of crime control: Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison.
