The Advent of the Penal State Is Not a Destiny

IN YOUR BOOK LES PRISONS DE LA MISERE (PRISONS OF POVERTY), (1) YOU DESCRIBE the shift taking place in advanced societies from the social-welfare management of poverty to its punitive management via the police, criminal justice system, and prisons. Where does this sudden glorification of the "penal state" find its origins, and what is its "usefulness"? One could encapsulate the political mutation within which this transition is inscribed in the formula: "erasing of the economic state, dismantling of the social state, and strengthening of the penal state." These three transformations are intimately linked to one another, and all three result essentially from the conversion of the ruling classes to neoliberal ideology. Those who glorify the penal state today, in the United States and in Europe, are the same forces that yesterday demanded the end of Big Government on the social and economic fronts, and who succeeded in curtailing the prerogatives, expectations, and exigencies of the collectivity in the face of the market--that is, in the face of the dictatorship of large corporations. Although this may seem like a contradiction, in reality, these two components of the new institutional machinery for managing poverty are being put in place in the era of mass joblessness and precarious employment. This new "government" of social insecurity -- to speak like Miche l Foucault--rests on the discipline of the deskilled and deregulated labor market and on an intrusive and omnipresent penal apparatus. The invisible hand of the market and the iron fist of the state are complementary and combine to make the lower classes accept desocialized wage labor and the social instability it brings in its wake. After a long eclipse, the prison thus returns to the frontline of institutions entrusted with maintaining the social order. The overpowering ascent of the theme of "urban violence" and crime in the discourse and policies of European governments, and especially in France since the return to power of the so-called Gauche Plurielle (i.e., plural Left, composed of the Socialist, Communist, and Green parties), has little to do with the evolution of "youth" delinquency. (Such youth, of course, are of working-class and foreign origin, since it is squarely they who are meant; besides, in many countries, such as Italy and Germany, politicians feel no discomfort in coming straight out and saying "immigrant crime.") Instead, its aim is to foster the redefinition of the perimeter and modalities of state action. The Keynesian state -- the historic vehicle of solidarity, whose mission was to counter the cycles and damages of the market, to ensure the collective "well-fare," and to reduce inequalities -- is succeeded by a Darwinian state. The latter makes a fetish of competition and celebrates individual responsibility (whose counterpart is coll ective irresponsibility), while withdrawing into its kingly functions of "law and order," themselves hypertrophied. The penal apparatus in the post-Keynesian era of employment of insecurity thus has a threefold usefulness. It serves to discipline the fractions of the working class that buck at the new, precarious service jobs; it neutralizes and warehouses its most disruptive elements, or those considered superfluous in regard to the transformations of the demand for labor; and it reaffirms the authority of the state in the limited domain that is henceforth assigned to it. How are the penal state and the policy of "zero tolerance" being imported into the countries of Europe, and particularly into France? One can distinguish three stages in the worldwide diffusion of the new "made-in-the-USA" ideologies and policies of law and order, and, in particular, the zero tolerance measures. (Interestingly, they are called "quality of life" measures in New York, no joke). (2) The first is the phase of gestation, implementation, and showcasing in American cities, and especially in New York City, which was elevated to the rank of the Mecca of security by a systematic propaganda campaign. …