Criminological Knowledge and its Relation to Power: Foucault's Genealogy and Criminology Today
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Description
This paper arises out of an attempt to formulate a series of questions with which to approach research on the history of criminology in Britain. It begins by questioning some aspects of Michel Foucault's influential characterization of criminology as a disciplinary knowledge which serves to legitimize and extend modern penal power. It then proceeds to suggest an alternative approach which retains key elements of Foucault's analysis but places these within a wider framework of inquiry. Foucault argues that criminology emerged from the disciplinary practices of the prison; that it serves to legitimize penal power by representing punishment as a scientific procedure; that it provides the knowledge of offenders necessary to modern normalizing practices; that the subject's raison d'etre rests upon its being ‘useful for power’; and that modem criminology has remained ‘extremely close to the disciplinary power that shaped it’. I will suggest that this conception needs to be reworked in a number of respects if it is to serve as a basis for thinking about modern criminology and its social functions. In particular, the question of criminology's relation to ‘power’ needs to be better specified to allow a more differentiated description of forms of power, forms of criminology, and the various ways in which they relate to each other. My purpose in criticizing Foucault is not to defend the discipline of criminology against his trenchant criticisms. Nor is it my purpose to deny Foucault's fundamental claims about the intertwining of knowledge and power in this and other spheres of social life, although I will suggest that these claims require elaboration in this instance. Rather, it seems to me that Foucault's account—which has influenced much recent research and commentary on the discipline, including my own—does not adequately depict the character and range of criminology, particularly modern twentieth-century criminology, and needs to be reworked and extended if it is to serve as a guide to further research.
Source Publication
Michel Foucault: Critical Assessments
Source Editors/Authors
Barry Smart
Publication Date
1995
Volume Number
VII
Recommended Citation
Garland, David W., "Criminological Knowledge and its Relation to Power: Foucault's Genealogy and Criminology Today" (1995). Faculty Chapters. 702.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/702
