8: Foucault and Prison Abolition

Author:
Chloë Taylor
Publication Date:
19 Mar 2025
Pages:
138–154
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529224061.ch008
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This chapter provides an overview of Foucault’s analysis of prisons and his arguments for prison abolitionism in Discipline and Punish. For instance, it explains Foucault’s arguments that prisons neither prevent crime nor make society safer, and that they are nevertheless functioning exactly as they are supposed to. It also provides an overview of the ways in which contemporary critical prison studies scholars have taken up Foucault’s canonical work and have expanded upon some of his central arguments. While Foucault made his arguments with respect to the oppressive class functions of the prison, contemporary scholars have analysed the ways in which the criminal punishment system furthers the political interests of racist, settler colonial, xenophobic, eugenic, ableist, homophobic and transphobic states. The chapter concludes with a reflection on the limitations of Foucault’s work for critical prison scholarship today.

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