Foucault opens with a graphic account of Damiens the regicide being publicly tortured and executed for attempting to assassinate the king.

Foucault contrasts Damiens's brutal public execution with a coldly regimented list of prisoner rules, marking a dramatic shift in Western punishment.

Foucault explains that public torture reinforced sovereign power by turning executions into political rituals of domination over the masses.

Foucault argues that growing crowd rebellions at executions—rather than humanitarian concern—ultimately drove the abolition of public spectacle.

Foucault reveals that crimes shifted from violent offenses to theft as populations grew wealthier, demanding an entirely new penal framework.

Foucault introduces the distinction between illegalities of property enjoyed by the proletariat and illegalities of rights exercised by the bourgeoisie.

Foucault presents the conditions required for punishment to function as a strategy of power over the soul rather than the body.

Foucault argues that imprisonment grew from practical necessity for those who could not be publicly executed, not from reformist ideals.

Foucault introduces the concept of docile bodies, arguing that discipline—not nature—creates the ideal soldier, student, or prisoner.

Foucault introduces Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon as an architectural model enabling total surveillance while keeping the observer hidden from inmates.

Foucault argues that the Panopticon's power is self-sustaining because inmates cannot determine whether or when they are actually being observed.

Foucault describes the modern prison as deploying isolation, forced labor, and moral education while claiming rehabilitation as its stated purpose.

Foucault reveals that prisons consistently produce recidivism rather than reform, yet the same critiques repeat endlessly without any institutional change.

Foucault identifies the opening of the Mettray penal colony as the birth of the fully realized carceral system and its extreme disciplines.

Foucault concludes that the carceral system's true purpose is to regulate illegalities and preserve the power and freedoms of the bourgeoisie.

Foucault opens with the graphic execution of Damiens the regicide to establish how public torture served as a political ritual reinforcing sovereign power. Over time, growing crowd rebellions at executions forced punishment indoors, replacing spectacle with the fear of an unseen penalty. As economies changed, crimes shifted toward property offenses, demanding a new legal framework built around deterrence and the preservation of bourgeois illegalities. Foucault introduces docile bodies and the Panopticon as the disciplinary tools that make modern imprisonment possible, showing how power hides itself inside institutional architecture. The modern prison claims rehabilitation through isolation, labor, and education but consistently produces recidivism rather than reform. Foucault concludes that the carceral system's true function has never been correction—it exists to regulate illegalities and preserve the power of the wealthy class.

The headline arc of Western punishment from public torture to the carceral system.

Foucault introduces four methodological rules outlining how he will study all possible outcomes of the penal system and power.

Foucault argues that concealing punishment made fear abstract—people dread the possibility of punishment rather than experiencing bodily pain directly.

Foucault describes how France formalized a hierarchy of punishments linking the severity of torture precisely to the gravity of a crime.

Foucault explains that the accused was kept entirely ignorant of all charges and evidence, giving prosecutors and judges a monopoly on power.

Foucault describes how torture functioned simultaneously as the investigative process and the primary mechanism for extracting a public confession.

Foucault explains how psychiatric experts became key judicial witnesses, allowing courts to expand their authority over non-criminal matters of the mind.

Foucault argues that effective punishment must fit the individual—a minor fine devastates the poor while meaning nothing at all to the wealthy.

Foucault argues that the deterrent lesson of punishment must be continuously refreshed through courtroom drama, since prison hides the spectacle from view.

Foucault describes how new prison administrations gained the power to shorten or lengthen sentences based solely on inmate conduct and behavior.

Foucault outlines the art of distributions, through which bodies are enclosed, spatially separated, and hierarchically ranked within institutional spaces.

Foucault explains how normalizing judgment replaced status and privilege with Norms, making any deviation from accepted behavior a punishable offense.

Foucault introduces examination as a discipline combining observation and judgment that transforms individual prisoners into permanently documented case files.

Foucault uses plague-era town lockdowns to show how epidemic containment measures seeded the entire logic of organized modern surveillance.

Foucault argues that Panopticism decentralizes power by removing any identifiable sovereign figure from the role of punisher.

Foucault argues that prison administrators wield the same autonomous punitive sovereignty over prisoners that kings once held over the condemned.

Foucault establishes four methodological rules before tracing the hidden mechanics of the pre-reform justice system, in which the accused was denied all knowledge of the charges against them. Torture served simultaneously as investigation and confession, and psychiatric expertise later entered courts to dramatically expand judicial authority into non-criminal matters. Foucault details the conditions required for an effective new punitive system, including punishments calibrated to the individual and the continuous re-dramatization of crime through courtroom spectacle. He then outlines the specific institutional disciplines—the art of distributions, normalizing judgment, and examination—that transform living individuals into documented and classified cases. Plague-era surveillance and the architecture of the Panopticon together illustrate how modern power decentralizes itself while retaining total informational control. The section concludes with Foucault arguing that prison administrators have assumed the same absolute punitive sovereignty that monarchs once wielded at the scaffold.

The secondary mechanisms and arguments that built the case for modern punishment.

Foucault argues that power constitutes humanity itself, producing the modern soul as a direct result of discipline and punishment applied to the body.

Foucault reveals that symbolic torture directly mirrored crimes—Damiens was forced to carry the dagger with which he attacked the king.

Foucault argues that spectators at executions held genuine political power, with their protests capable of overturning a sovereign's judgment.

Foucault reveals that economic shifts and growing wealth—not moral progress—were the primary drivers of decreased violent crime and penal reform.

Foucault argues that the humanitarian language used to justify penal reform masked a fundamental restructuring of power rather than moral advancement.

Foucault reveals that penal reformers originally opposed imprisonment as a wasteful practice that simply replicated the brutality of public torture.

Foucault introduces the composition of forces as a discipline that combines individual docile bodies into a single coordinated unit of institutional machinery.

Foucault describes hierarchical observation as a 'microscope of conduct' requiring specially designed architecture that allows total internal institutional oversight.

Foucault reveals that the Panopticon enables administrators to conduct controlled experiments on inmates and systematically document the results.

Foucault reveals that Bentham designed the Panopticon tower to be open to any outside visitor, preventing administrators from abusing their surveillance power.

Foucault reveals that prison reform and the prison itself emerged simultaneously, yet reform principles were immediately converted into instruments of control.

Foucault argues that chain-gangs were a remnant of public spectacle, with media coverage of criminal trials later performing the same social function.

Foucault reveals that imprisoning breadwinners destabilizes inmates' families, making relatives likely to be drawn into the same cycle of institutionalization.

Foucault argues that the carceral system bends law to justify its own practices rather than operating within established legal boundaries.

Foucault concludes that continuous bodily observation within the carceral system ensures the perpetual reproduction of power and the preservation of illegality.

Foucault begins with his most provocative claim: that power constitutes humanity itself and produces the modern soul through the very act of punishment. He reveals that symbolic torture—such as Damiens being forced to carry the weapon of his crime—shows that punishment was always a performance of power, and that spectators at executions held enough genuine political force to overturn a sovereign's judgment. The humanitarian rhetoric of penal reform is then exposed as a reframing of power rather than moral progress, with reformers themselves initially opposing imprisonment for replicating the brutality they sought to end. Foucault reveals specific disciplinary mechanisms—the composition of forces, hierarchical observation, and the Panopticon's experimental potential—as instruments of knowledge acquisition designed to serve power rather than correct offenders. The prison is shown to destabilize inmates' families and bend law to its own purposes, perpetuating the very criminality it claims to address. Foucault's final revelation is that the carceral system's continuous bodily surveillance ensures not rehabilitation but the endless reproduction of power and the preservation of illegality.

The key revelations and turning points that expose the power hidden behind every form of punishment.