What political direction, if any, does _Discipline and Punish_ suggest, though? Foucault ably makes an implicit argument that the result of Benthamite reforms (emphasis on the rehabilitation of the soul, etc.) may be an even more effective instrument of social control than spectacular torture of the body conducted in the name of pre-modern sovereigns, though the advocacy of Benthamite reforms was cloaked in the mantle of humanitarianism. In the USA, however, the trend in criminal justice, for the last couple of decades, has been toward the reversals of the very reforms that were objects of Foucault's critique: return of capital punishment; execution of the mentally ill or retarded; trials of juvenile offenders as adults; reintroduction of chain gangs; and so on (though prison overcrowding has also led to a counter-trend that calls for addiction treatment & the like rather than incarceration) -- in short, preference for punishment rather than rehabilitation (symbolized by the execution of Karla Fay Tucker).
Yoshie