Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Apr 1, 2009, at 3:36 PM, Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> > Let's put Foucault's point bluntly: the purpose of the prison system
> > is to create criminals and expand various social practices and
> > discourse to "control" criminality. As far as I can see, the U. S.
> > prison system is a wonderful case study that illustrates Foucault's
> > point.
>
> I find this a seductive explanation, but just how does it happen? Did
> Nixon sit down and plan it out when he unleashed the war on crime? And
> what about the role of politicians pandering to the "get tough" crowd
> of voters? In the U.S., the incarceration boom had pretty broad
> popular support.
This is a topic for major and continuing investigation. I think the starting point is Miles's bluntness. This is how it works in fact, and the problem is not to establish the fact but to take it as datum and search for explanation of how it comes about. Ideology analysis is not science, but it has to be sort of systematic as science is.
I think _some_ consciousness was involved in the launching of the war against crime: We know Nixon was really obsessed with the social movement of the '60s (from which came some good results -- i.e. the 'progressive' features of his administration), and looking both for ways to repress them and to absorb them through satisfying some of their demands. The War on Crime then is the other side of the coin ofrevenue sharing, etc. In general, I think ruling elites in the u.s. took the '60s 'rebellion' pretty seriusly, and policies of the early '70s were in a pretty conscius ways efforts to quiet a "revolution" that they really feared.
This is all pretty provisional.
CArrol