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Ethics and Correction

The document discusses the scapegoating theory, which suggests that societies historically isolate and sacrifice individuals deemed sinful or unclean to appease perceived divine wrath. It references Foucault's perspective on modern corrections as a form of social scapegoating, where prisons serve to exclude and punish individuals rather than rehabilitate them. The text critiques the prison system as a mechanism that inflicts spiritual punishment, leading to a loss of humanity and dignity among inmates.

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19 views2 pages

Ethics and Correction

The document discusses the scapegoating theory, which suggests that societies historically isolate and sacrifice individuals deemed sinful or unclean to appease perceived divine wrath. It references Foucault's perspective on modern corrections as a form of social scapegoating, where prisons serve to exclude and punish individuals rather than rehabilitate them. The text critiques the prison system as a mechanism that inflicts spiritual punishment, leading to a loss of humanity and dignity among inmates.

Uploaded by

jusselle
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Ethics of Man and Corrections: The Scapegoating Theory

Since the beginning of time, questions of citizenship have ubiquitously polarized the human mind. Like the
natural contradictions of life and death, good and bad, light and darkness, the contradiction of criminal and
noncriminal may have been taken for granted as a social phenomenon giving rise to the scapegoating theory.
The concept of scapegoating is not altogether new; it was known to primitive tribes as sacrificial rituals.
When societies were confronted with catastrophes, real or imaginary, that were beyond their comprehension,
they were interpreted as wrathful acts of the gods, caused by the sinful or the unclean. To end the suffering,
chiefs isolated those members and made sacrifices (physical or symbolic) to appease the gods. Consequently,
sacrificing a person, an animal, or an object became a cultural ritual, institutionalizing the practice of social
scapegoating. To prevent future catastrophes, isolation of the sinners and the unclean had to continue and
sacrifices had to be offered on a routine basis. If that practice discontinued, it was believed that a catastrophe
would occur. In early Hebrew societies, the lepers, the defiled, and menstruating women were likewise isolated,
because they were considered unclean. Sacrifices were also made as atonements for sin. In Christian doctrine,
the practice became even more common, because Jesus Christ was believed to have spilled his blood to cleanse
all sin-stained souls.

The Influence of Foucault


Foucault, a noted French psychologist and journalist, pointed out that there may be an unspoken
relationship between the scapegoating theory and the purpose of corrections. In Madness and Civilization
(1973) he wrote that the current warehousing of criminals may indeed be an exercise in social scapegoating. He
explained that there appears to be a cultural need to exclude from society those believed to be sinners or
unclean. By today’s definition, these are the murderers, rapists, robbers, and thieves, as well as anyone who is
socially embarrassing, such as the mentally ill or the physically deformed.
Foucault reported that since the Middle Ages there were literally thousands of leprosariums in Europe where
lepers were incarcerated. While their isolation was in fact the proper “cure” and the disease almost completely
disappeared, this left Western society with a moral void. To fill these leprosariums that were left empty for
years, Western societies looked for scapegoats who fit the images and values of the leper, as well as the
reasoning for their exclusion. The significance of isolating society’s members and physically penning them up
in a “circled pit” served two purposes: atonement from sin on the part of society, and giving the offenders an
opportunity to achieve a state of grace (Pollock, 1989:130). Foucault’s perspective is certainly interesting and
should not be dismissed as farfetched. In his discussion of police subculture, Skolnick identified the police
officer’s view of the world with the concept of the “symbolic assailant,” an anonymous source of fear that
presents danger to the community of policemen. Skolnick explained that “the underlying moral sentiment
among cops was to round up and isolate persons who represent a prelude to violence by fitting the symbolic
assailant profile” (Skolnick, as cited in Blumberg & Niederhoffer, 1970:82).
Foucault later turned his attention to the problem of corrections and the role of prisons. In Discipline and
Punish (1977), he suggested that another reason for the development of prisons was the disappearance of
torture as a public spectacle. Foucault wrote that a few decades saw the “disappearance of the tortured,
dismembered, amputated body, and those exposed alive or dead to public view… the body as the major target
of penal repression disappeared” (Foucault, 1977:7-8). Foucault then asks, “If the penalty in its most severe
forms no longer addresses itself to the body, on what does it lay hold?” His answer was simple, almost obvious
—it must be the soul. The public spectacle of punishment was banished into the unconscious of society—the
prison fortress. The expiation that once rained down upon the body of the prisoner has been replaced by a
punishment that acts in-depth on his heart, his thoughts, his will, and his inclinations (Schwartz & Travis,
1997:67).
Foucault, of course, is not the only observer to see modern prisons as tools to break the human spirit rather
than skin and bones. Horkheimer and Adorno—who wrote during World War II about Nazi Germany—argued

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that since the mid-nineteenth century, “bourgeois” governments have attacked man’s soul, whereas the
monarchies attacked his body. According to the authors, prisoners no longer die a slow death in the torture
chamber; they simply waste away spiritually in the great prison building that differs in little but name from
madhouses (Horkheimer & Adorno, 1972:228). It is little wonder that Germann and colleagues, in their classic
Introduction to Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, refer to imprisonment as “spiritual punishment”
(Germann, Day, & Gallati, 1988:39).
In describing today’s prison, Smarto (1989), in Justice and Mercy, presents a horrific view of the prison
environment. While his description can be very depressing at times, his analysis emphasizes four basic
features: (1) the total loss of choice that turns inmates into infantile creatures; (2) the continuous threat of
violence that can be neither ignored nor overcome; (3) the terrifying fear of sadism and rape—more than half of
the inmates are raped within the first 30 days of their incarceration; and (4) the continuous abuse by
correctional officers. Smarto, a former assistant superintendent of a maximum-security facility, asserts that the
prison environment makes inmates “sicker” and wonders how any rational policy can seek to “make sick
people well by making them sicker.”

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