Prison Survival Simulation

Many people have a vague understanding of the concept of prison. We often hear terms like detention centers, custody centers, and prisons, so let's first clarify the differences between these units. If you commit a relatively minor offense, you will generally be held in a detention center. Having been in a detention center will leave a record of the violation, but it will not result in a criminal record. Next is the custody center, where most of the individuals held are offenders awaiting sentencing from the court or those with relatively short sentences. Only those with longer sentences will be transferred to prison, where they will begin their labor reform journey.

First, we will find that whether it is a violator or a sentenced prisoner, the custody center is an unavoidable checkpoint for newcomers. After going through a series of processes such as physical examinations and receiving supplies, you will be sent to your cell. The moment the iron door closes, a new life begins. Many people are most concerned during their initial period about whether they will be beaten. In fact, you can rest assured; the atmosphere inside is very civilized. There is 24-hour continuous monitoring in the cell, along with a three-point system to prevent fights. Those who resort to violence will face harsher consequences; if someone strikes first and does not change after being warned, they will generally be taken away in shackles and placed in solitary confinement.

Solitary confinement is like a nuclear bomb for those being held. The confinement cell is very small, surrounded by concrete walls, with only a small window for meals. No extra meals or snacks are allowed; some solitary cells have toilets, while those without will be given a bucket. Everything—eating, drinking, and bodily functions—during solitary confinement occurs in this dark, windowless cell, with no social interaction. After three days, you will experience a reversal of day and night; after seven days, you will feel disoriented. If someone insists on arguing with you despite the risk of solitary confinement, you may need to reflect on your own behavior.

That said, the initial construction upon entering is not standard but rather a transitional space designed to help newcomers quickly adapt to the environment. Here, the focus is on learning various rules and regulations, and the peers around you are all newcomers as well; there is no need to make things difficult for each other. The duration of stay in the transitional space varies by facility and will also depend on individual performance before being transferred to a regular cell.

Another frequently asked question is about the food. You can rest assured in this regard; if you wish, you can think of hot pot, barbecued skewers, roasted duck, and crayfish, but in reality, the meals consist of low-calorie, low-fat options with light oil and salt—essentially boiled cabbage in water. It's quite disappointing. Staying here for a month will definitely normalize high blood pressure, and even severe fatty liver will rejuvenate, but the food varies by region. This is a widely circulated recipe for a lead-free diet, which appears to be very healthy. Remember, when chatting in the soup, avoid topics like ramen, fried chicken, barbecued skewers, and hot pot, or you will definitely have insomnia that night.

Besides the cravings for good food causing insomnia, the environment is also a reason for sleeplessness. There are no beds in the custody center; you sleep on a large communal bed, packed closely together, not only hungry but also possibly having someone else's front pressed against your back while you sleep. It's quite commendable, but with so many people, you can't avoid enduring the sounds of roommates burping, farting, and snoring. If you can tolerate all this, there’s another system that guarantees you won't get a full night's sleep: duty shifts. To prevent suicides or sudden illnesses among roommates, everyone in the dormitory must take turns on night duty, usually for one or two hours. If you manage to survive the shift change, there’s one final challenge: sleeping with the lights on. You might think, "Can't I just put my head under the blanket?" Ah, sorry, that's not allowed. The rules state that you cannot put your head under the blanket or share a blanket with someone else. When the wake-up bell rings the next morning, you must immediately get up and fold your blanket; there's no such thing as sleeping in, and throwing a tantrum won't get you out of it.

The consequences can be a week of material confiscation or, worse, solitary confinement. Life in the custody center is very regimented, with a tight schedule. Dozens of people are crammed into a small cell, taking turns washing and cleaning the toilet under constant supervision; you must learn to adapt to receiving tasks in front of everyone.

However, be aware that taking too long or being too smelly can lead to dissatisfaction among your roommates. Another slightly enjoyable aspect is shopping; everyone has an account, commonly referred to as the "big account," where family members can deposit money—usually no more than 400 or 500 yuan per month. You can buy limited snacks like instant noodles, ham sausages, pickled vegetables, biscuits, and milk. The seasoning packets for instant noodles are rare treasures; no matter how bland the meals are, adding a little can make them taste better. The biggest issue here is anxiety—endless anxiety. Daily life is regular, and in the overcrowded, privacy-less environment, you wait and wait for interrogations and verdicts, not knowing when it will end. The moment everyone looks forward to the most is the outdoor time, which is one of the few opportunities to leave the cell. What you think of as outdoor time is not free movement in a playground; rather, it’s a room without a ceiling covered with steel mesh, where you can hang clothes and see the blue sky outside. Even just this long-lost fresh air is enough to provide some relaxation. When it rains, the outdoor area will be closed, which can be quite frustrating for many.

Some people look forward to going home, while others dream of quickly going to prison, thinking that prison conditions are much better than those in the custody center. At least everyone gets a bed, and you no longer have to worry about waking up to find a big guy hugging you. You also won’t have to take shifts anymore, and you can finally get a good night’s sleep. The meals also improve from simple fare to a few meat dishes each week, and occasionally there will be roasted chicken or pork knuckles as a treat. The most fortunate thing is that the case is finally settled, and you no longer have to worry every day about the outcome. Now, all you need to do is work hard on labor reform, which is similar to assembly line work outside. Most prisons implement a 5+1+1 work system: five days of work, one day of study, and one day off. Although the pay is not much, at least you can earn some money. Here, no one makes empty promises; there are clear scoring assessments, and as long as you don’t slack off, you can meet your KPIs, and exceeding them will earn you extra meals. Accumulating points can even allow you to exchange for items, so slacking off is not an option; everyone is working hard.

If you accidentally become a serious criminal and are about to enter prison, what will you face? This is not a romantic encounter like in "Prison Break," nor is it a stunning twist like in "The Shawshank Redemption." There are no filters, no beautification; only cold iron bars and high walls, along with the monotonous life day after day. This prison guide will take you through an immersive experience of the prison process, revealing the lesser-known daily life in prison. When you are handcuffed and taken onto a police car, this strange journey begins. As you board the dedicated bus and see so many fellow inmates, you might feel a bit excited, but you must remain quiet, as the police will use "educational love" to make the prisoners obedient.

First, we arrive at the first stop, the medical examination center. The prison will arrange a comprehensive free medical examination for the prisoners, covering everything from height, weight, and vision to blood tests and internal organs, leaving nothing out. The staff will establish health records based on the examination results to ensure the hygiene and safety of the iron-bar resort. If any serious illnesses are found during this process, or if a prisoner is still breastfeeding, they will be assigned to a special cell based on the specific situation. As the police car slowly enters the prison, you may feel a bit excited, but please remain calm and follow the police officer's instructions to get off the car in order.
Everyone must unbuckle their seatbelts and get off the car from right to left in order.

At this point, the prison guards and police dogs have been waiting at the gate for a long time. Although you want to take a few more glances at the outside world, the restraints on your hands and feet do not allow you to do so, and the guards will keep urging you. Next comes the identity verification. Name.

Zhang San, date of birth, May 28, 1985, expected release date, three years and six months, is there any mistake?
Suddenly, you feel a chill on your wrist; it turns out the warning is being activated, and everyone is finally free from their restraints. Now you must hand over all personal belongings, including your phone, wallet, jewelry, and even your belt and shoelaces, completing a severance from your past life. Next, the warning will conduct a thorough search of the prisoners to ensure that there are no prohibited items. After the inspection, you can go to receive new clothes. The prison uniforms are thin, in a single color, and the sizes may not fit strictly, but you have no other choice. Then, the prisoners will change into prison uniforms and shoes under the supervision of the guards. Teacher Tony is ready; regardless of whether you were previously non-mainstream, with side bangs or straight bangs, here everyone will have no bangs, male prisoners will have uniform buzz cuts, and female prisoners will have their hair cut to the ear.

After the haircut, the guards will take photos to establish personal files. At this time, each prisoner will receive a name tag with basic information; this tag will serve as the prisoner’s identity for the next month. At this moment, the beauty of the world will have nothing to do with them, and you will feel that there was once a time of absolute freedom before you, but you did not cherish it. Now it is too late to regret. Before you can finish your lament, the prison has already called the prisoners in for one-on-one talks. Of course, they are not there to give the prisoners motivational speeches or emphasize prison rules; this is just a preliminary conversation. To understand the basic information of the prisoners for future management and ideological reform, after the preliminary conversation, the guards will conduct another roll call and headcount.

The first row, count off 1, 2, 3. Four, five, 5, He Lin go to Lin Si Lv.
Then there will be another body search; once you enter the prison, it will be endless roll calls and searches. Next, you will follow the group into the newly received area for a month of prison education. During this period, prisoners will undergo queue training, health exercises, learn and recite prison rules, and learn patriotic songs, etc. After a month, the prison will conduct assessments, and based on the results, prisoners will be assigned to different blocks. Generally speaking, prisoners will be classified into four levels: strict management level, general management level, observation level, and lenient management level. Different levels correspond to different treatment; the lower the level, the better the treatment, allowing for phone calls, increasing the number of family visits and time, and also increasing the monthly spending limit. Immediately afterward, prisoners will be taken into the dormitory, assigned to a room, but you will not have the right to choose your bed. The prison will assign beds based on the prisoners' physical condition, age, and other factors. Prisoners cannot switch beds, nor can two people lie on the same bed; when sleeping, they cannot cover their heads, and sometimes they cannot even put their hands under the blanket.

No arguing, no fighting. Can you do it? Yes.
At this time, the guards will give you 15 minutes to organize your personal belongings, and then you will have to go with your cellmates to the playground for queue training.
After a fulfilling day, you can finally sleep. The lights in the cell will not be turned off; many people cannot sleep, but no one dares to speak. You lie in bed tossing and turning. The next morning, prison life officially begins. With the wake-up whistle at 6 o'clock, you and your cellmates immediately get up from bed, not daring to slack off for a moment, because prisoners must immediately tidy up their living quarters and fold their blankets into tofu blocks, then wash their faces and brush their teeth. Any failure to meet the standards or complete washing within the specified time will be considered a general violation, resulting in a deduction of 1 to 3 points. Once the points reach a certain level, punishments such as warnings, demerits, or solitary confinement will be imposed. Parole and sentence reductions follow quickly after the assembly bell rings, and prisoners must quickly reach the playground for roll call and physical training.

Time quickly reaches 8 o'clock, the most exciting meal time. Although you are anxious, please don't rush; there is also a strict roll call and body search before meals. As a seasoned offender, you are most concerned about the prison food. Although the meals here are not known for their color, aroma, and flavor, they ensure basic nutrition. Fortunately, these meals do not contain any technological or harsh ingredients; every bite is very healthy. Although the meal standards vary from prison to prison, most prisons serve steamed buns with pickled vegetables for breakfast, a bowl of rice with a stir-fried dish for lunch, usually home-style dishes like cucumber stir-fried with meat or celery stir-fried with meat, and dinner consists of a bowl of rice and a bowl of vegetarian dishes. When the guard gives the command, you must start wolfing down your food because prisoners only have 15 to 30 minutes to eat, and during meals, you must also pay attention not to talk, not to grab food, and not to waste. After finishing, you must clean up your own bowls and chopsticks and leave in an orderly manner under the guard's instructions.

Around 8:30, breakfast ends, and prisoners begin to receive new tasks, such as operating sewing machines, installing round table pens, pulling data cables, and higher-level tasks like carpentry and electrical work. These tasks can earn a certain amount of pay, although not much, they can improve life. However, even if you have money in prison, you cannot spend it freely. To encourage prisoners to reform and become better people, prisons generally implement a strict consumption grading system.

Strict management level can spend only 100 yuan per month, observation level is limited to 200 yuan,
General management level is limited to 300 yuan, lenient management level is 500 yuan.
Among them, strict management level can only purchase daily necessities, while the other three levels can buy other goods provided by the prison's online supermarket. If there are holidays like Spring Festival, New Year's Day, or Dragon Boat Festival, the spending limits for prisoners will also be adjusted.

At noon, you finish your morning labor and can return to the cell for a lunch break after eating. In the afternoon, you may continue working or engage in educational studies, depending on the relevant regulations of the prison. When it reaches 6:50 in the evening, prisoners will sit in front of the television to watch the daily news broadcast. Next comes the most popular free activity time; you can read books, look at family photos, or write letters to family members, but the content of the conversations will be monitored by the guards.

At 9 o'clock, it’s time to return to the cell, and the guards will conduct another roll call while you continue to lie in bed tossing and turning. From now on, what wakes you up will no longer be the pressures of life and alarms, but the biological clock imposed by the prison.

Life in Chinese Prisons.#

First of all, in the custody center, after the court pronounces your sentence, you have the above rights for 7-20 days, which is a right granted to you by law. Of course, you can also choose not to exercise the above rights; the benefit is that you show an attitude of admitting guilt, which will be reflected in the materials for sentence reduction during future prison terms. However, the pros and cons of the above rights are somewhat ambiguous; the higher court will not reduce your sentence without absolute evidence, and some will... this will not be explicitly stated. You understand...

Do you know what selling pigs is? If so, congratulations, you have officially entered prison. From the detention center to prison, there will be armed police standing guard, so don’t be afraid; they are armed! No one dares to rob you unless they are...

That said, in the past, going to that prison was a choice, with two options:

1. Short-term prison
1. Long-term prison

The latter is much more difficult because the people inside are all serving sentences of ten years or more. You can imagine what ten years is like. Now, let's get to the main topic:

The police will take you to the prison gate; remember to look outside, so you can get out sooner.

Take your belongings and register with your officer to enter the prison.

The officer will take you to the prison gate and hand you over to the prison intake team for management. The intake team will immediately take you to the medical team for disinfection and inspection; if you do not meet the standards, you will be sent back!

The reform life in the intake team is as follows:

The difficult life begins. Generally, at that time, your mind is very confused; if you are lucky enough to catch a meal, you won’t have to go hungry!

The first thing that happens is that the person in charge will give you a number, and prepare the necessary living and learning supplies, including prison shoes, prison uniforms, blankets, pillows, pens, paper, envelopes, stamps, and family communication cards. Each person gets two small booklets (Behavioral Norms for Prisoners) and (Prisoner Support System), which will accompany you throughout your reform journey, so make sure to memorize and understand the rules.

The second thing is that the guards will come to understand your situation, and they will tell you three things: "Remember where you are, what your identity is, and what you are here for."

The fourth thing is distributing cages for three months of reform learning, which includes norms, queue training, and singing, all of which must pass assessments to be allowed to leave the team.

If you have skills in society, congratulations, you will have a place to use them. Chefs can go to the kitchen, doctors can go to the medical team, and those with higher education will naturally go to the teaching building. If you have nothing, then sorry, there’s nothing that can be done; money can buy reform, but without money, you can only be reformed.

After entering the team, the captain will arrange for you to learn from that prisoner, which is manageable. If you have friends from the same hometown, ask them for advice to avoid detours.

Life in the team is as follows:

Every day, the prisoners will blow the whistle around 6 a.m. to wake up. Remember to get up immediately; otherwise, if the captain finds you sleeping in, you will be punished, depending on the captain's mood.

Get up quickly and fold your blanket, and queue up to wash up as the first thing. After washing up, clean the area and prepare for breakfast, and singing a reform song before meals is a must.

After breakfast, wait to go to work. Labor is the most honorable, and hard work cleanses the soul. Work has task indicators; if you fail to complete them, you ask me what to do, and I will tell you congratulations, the sad moment has arrived. You know the circle that Sun Wukong drew around the White Bone Demon in "Journey to the West"? You can try that. Or copy the 38 regulations several times, and believe me, you will soon meet the indicators.

In prison, never say anything bad about the country, insult the party, or oppose the people's government; these are all bottom lines. If you cross the bottom line, there’s no way to survive.

Now prisons have begun to implement a 5+1+1 reform model: five days of labor reform, one day of rest, and one day of skill learning. On weekends, you can go to the square for activities, but you must apply in advance. Moreover, under the leadership of the people's government, five prisoners will be inspected at the corners, and the headcount will be checked every moment. You must remember the situation of your group members to prevent police inspections.

Each person's situation is different; one rule is to speak less and do more, be smart, and don’t talk randomly with others. Sometimes, what you say in one minute can lead to disaster in the next, so be careful.

Reform is the loss of freedom and loneliness. If you can't stand it, you will be close to a mental breakdown.

Whether in the custody center or prison, if you want to survive well, you must adhere to the following points: First, follow the rules; second, respect others; third, keep a low profile; fourth, minimize internal consumption, do more work, and think less. In fact, these points also apply in the outside world after leaving prison. The side quests of life have been completed; players should not attempt a second run. No matter how good the rivers and lakes are, do not forget why you came to prison.

Chapter One: The Body of the Criminal#

The Change of Punishment

Foucault begins by using historical materials to show us the scene of Damiens being executed on March 2, 1757—bloody and brutal. He then quotes the regulations of the "Paris Juvenile Detention Center" eighty years later—tightly linked to a schedule. Although the two target different crimes or offenders, they represent two entirely different methods of punishment. There was a significant change in punishment from the late 18th century to the early 19th century, which includes two processes that are not synchronized and have different causes. In Foucault's words, "a tragedy has ended, and a comedy has begun."

The first process is "the disappearance of punishment as a public spectacle." People began to question the barbarity of this dramatic punishment process itself, and the executed individuals even began to be praised at the execution site. The gradual disappearance of this spectacle produced several consequences: "It detached itself from the realm of daily feelings and entered the realm of abstract consciousness; its effectiveness was seen as stemming from its inevitability rather than from visible intensity; the certainty of punishment, rather than the terrifying spectacle of public punishment, should be able to deter crime; the demonstrative power of punishment changed the punishment mechanism. One result is that the judiciary no longer bears social responsibility due to the violence connected with its practice." The judiciary no longer focuses on the execution scene but rather distances itself from it, while public attention shifts to trials and verdicts. This also means "a relaxation of control over the body." The second process emerges: "Punishment shifts from a technique that creates unbearable sensations to an economic mechanism of temporary deprivation of rights." This first means that the target of punishment has changed; the body retreats, and the soul takes the stage. The purpose of punitive measures is "not to punish illegal acts but to supervise the person, eliminate their dangerous mindset or reform their criminal tendencies, and even maintain these measures after the offender has changed." At this stage, psychiatry, especially criminology and criminal anthropology, enters the scene, and their discourse plays an important role: "By solemnly incorporating crime into the realm of scientific knowledge, they provide a legitimate control power that combines the punishment mechanism: not only controlling crime but also controlling individuals, not only controlling their actions but also controlling their current, future, and potential states." Thus, the legal system expands its influence from the body to the soul through "science." Therefore, judges, in addition to adjudicating actions, also adjudicate things beyond actions, which requires a series of auxiliary authorities. "Criminal justice can only operate and legitimize itself by constantly referring to something outside itself, embedding itself in non-judicial systems." "A whole set of knowledge, techniques, and 'scientific' discourses has formed and become increasingly entangled with the practice of punitive power."

The Purpose and Principles of This Book

The purpose of Foucault's book is to "discuss the historical relationship between the modern soul and a new power of judgment, to discuss the genealogy of the current scientific-legal complex. In this complex, punitive power has obtained its own foundation, proof, and rules, expanded its effects, and concealed its extraordinary uniqueness with this complex." In this book, Foucault follows several principles: First, not only seeing the negative aspects of punishment but also the positive aspects, viewing it as a complex social function; second, not only viewing punitive methods as legislative consequences or social results but as a more general field with its own distinctive techniques for exercising power, treating it as a political strategy; third, not viewing the history of criminal law separately from the history of humanities but as derivatives of the "knowledge-justice" matrix, transforming "power technology" into a common principle of the humanization of the penal system and the understanding of people; fourth, attempting to discover whether the entry of the soul into the field of criminal justice and the entry of scientific knowledge into judicial practice are indeed interventions of power relations in the structure of the body. In summary, what Foucault aims to study is to analyze how the relaxation of criminal law serves as a power technology, analyzing "how a specific method of conquest can create a person who is recognized as a subject of knowledge in a certain 'scientific' status."

The Concept and Characteristics of Micro-Power

The view that punishment is a means of reducing crime is an illusion; punishment also has corrective and reparative purposes and should not be considered solely in terms of basic moral choices or social judicial structures but should be considered within the field of its operation.

The question is, can we describe the history of punishment's soul with the history of the body? Descriptions of the history of the body are already very rich. Essentially, the intervention of the body in the political realm is closely linked to "the economic use of the body." The body, as a productive force, is subject to the intervention of power and domination relationships; however, only after it is conquered and controlled can it form a labor force (for example, slaves). This conquest can be violent or the result of a power struggle. Thus, it is possible to form a science of bodily function, a knowledge of the body. The technology of power attached to the body is fragmented; it "is not fixed in any specific institutional framework or state apparatus."

Foucault vividly refers to this as a "micro-physics of power." For this technology of power, Foucault makes several hypotheses: First, this is not a form of ownership, not an effect based on possession, "but should be attributed to deployment, strategy, tactics, technology, operation; people should decipher a network of relationships that is always in a state of tension and activity, rather than interpreting the privileges that people may possess; its model should be eternal struggle, rather than a contract or conquest of a territory. In summary, this is a power that is exercised rather than possessed. It is not a 'privilege' obtained or maintained by the ruling class, but a comprehensive effect of its strategic position—an effect displayed and sometimes expanded by the position of the ruled." Secondly, this power spreads as it is exercised; it is not fixed between entities but is continuously disseminated and dispersed through some mechanism. Finally, they are not singular but determine countless points of collision, even leading to the subversion of power, but this subversion "does not follow the rule of 'either all or none'; this subversion is not caused by the state apparatus being controlled by new forces or the original institutional framework exercising new functions or being destroyed all at once; on the other hand, these local episodes will not be recorded in history unless they impact the entire network that constrains them." Therefore, the technology of power is very difficult to detect.

Power-Knowledge

Foucault believes that "not only because knowledge serves power does power encourage knowledge, and not only because knowledge is useful does power use knowledge," "power and knowledge are directly interconnected; it is impossible to construct a field of knowledge without presupposing power relations, and power relations cannot exist without simultaneously presupposing and constructing knowledge." "It is not the activity of the knowing subject that produces a knowledge system that helps power or resists power; on the contrary, power-knowledge, through the development and contradictory struggles of power-knowledge, determines the form of knowledge and its possible fields." We must abandon the opposition of violence-ideology, the concept of ownership, the contract and conquest model; on the issue of knowledge, we must abandon the opposition of harmful relationships-harmless relationships, the primacy of the knowing subject, and Foucault's focus is on "political bodies," "they serve as weapons, relays, channels, and means of support for the relationship between power and knowledge, and that relationship intervenes and conquers human bodies by turning them into objects of knowledge." For example, the king's body has both temporality and eternity, and around this duality, a portraiture (symbol), political theory, and legal mechanisms are formed. The king's surplus power projected onto the punished person reveals the latter's powerlessness, becoming a meaning-opposite replica. In this sense, the soul is defined. That is, "people should not see this soul as a remnant of some ideological residue but as an existence related to a power technology that dominates the body." It differs from the theological definition of the soul; "it is born from various methods of punishment, surveillance, and coercion. This non-corporeal reality of the soul is not an entity but a factor. It embodies a certain effect of power, a certain reference of knowledge, a certain mechanism." Around this "reality-reference," a series of knowledge can be produced, and various concepts can be distinguished. Thus, "the person described to us, the person we are told to liberate, embodies a much deeper effect of conquest than he himself perceives. There is a 'soul' occupying him, allowing him to exist—it itself is a factor of power controlling the body. This soul is an effect and tool of the anatomy of power; this soul is the prison of the body."

What Foucault analyzes is not just the material prison but the "prison" as a tool of power, a technology of domination over the body.

Chapter Two: The Scene of the Guillotine#

Torture

What is torture? First, torture is a technique, not a lawless violent performance; second, torture should be part of a certain ritual; finally, public torture is the most eye-catching, designed as a triumphant ceremony announcing victory.

As a technique, torture meets three criteria: "First, it must produce a certain degree of pain, which must be measurable, at least calculable, comparable, and graded. Second, the death penalty is also a form of torture because it not only deprives a person of the right to live but also represents the peak of calculated pain levels... Finally, the extreme penalty is an art of prolonging the pain of life, dividing a person's life into 'thousands of deaths,' creating 'the most exquisite and intense pain' before life ceases."

Torture is part of corporal punishment, which has two functions: one is torture as an investigative tool, and the other is torture as a method of public execution.

Torture as an Investigative Tool

(1) The significance of torture in the investigative mechanism
An important function of the legal ritual involving torture is to announce the truth to everyone, "establishing the truth is the absolute and exclusive power of the monarch and his judges." To this end, a series of rules of evidence were established during the Renaissance, aimed at ensuring that even if the defendant does not appear (silence or resistance), a mechanism for establishing the truth can still be produced. In this mechanism, the importance of confessions is central; a confession almost requires no additional evidence, and "this procedure uses its entire unambiguous authority to truly conquer the defendant; the only way for truth to fully display its power is to make the criminal confess." However, upon careful analysis, confessions themselves have dual ambiguity: first, a confession is both evidence and the object of investigation, as the suspect may say anything for various reasons, and the authenticity of the confession remains to be examined; second, a confession is both a result of coercion and retains some transactional characteristics, as confessions must be "voluntary," and the suspect's confession is clearly against their own interests, but they can speak, which must have its own reasons. This explains the two rituals of ancient judicial investigations: one is swearing an oath, and the other is torture. Both are used to guarantee "truth" and "voluntariness." "People require the defendant to play the role of a willing collaborator in this procedure, and to achieve this goal, the most extreme deterrent methods are necessary." Judicial investigations produce the truth through a mechanism that includes two factors: "one is the secret investigation conducted by the judicial authorities, and the other is the ritual behavior of the defendant. The defendant's body, which can speak and is tortured when necessary, unites these two factors."

(2) The operational mode of torture in the investigative mechanism
"First, interrogation is not a way to obtain the truth at any cost, nor is it the unlimited torture found in modern interrogations. It is indeed cruel, but it is not barbaric. It is a constrained activity that follows clearly defined procedures... Interrogation is a strict judicial activity... There is a competitive element preserved between the judge ordering the punishment and the suspect being punished. The punished person undergoes a step-by-step escalation of tests; if he 'holds on,' he succeeds; if he confesses, he fails... However, the interrogator takes certain risks when using torture; he is betting on evidence that has already been collected." "In interrogation, pain, competition, and truth are interconnected. They jointly act on the body of the punished person. This is also a battle; one side's victory over the other will 'produce' a truth that conforms to a certain ritual. In the torture used to obtain confessions, there is an investigative component, but there is also a duel component." It is not difficult to see that in investigations, the use of torture has combined investigation and punishment. We not only raise the question: how can a punishment serve as a means of investigation? This must return to the "real" way of producing truth in classical justice. In real judicial investigations, "every piece of evidence will evoke a certain degree of aversion towards the suspect. The determination of guilt does not begin when all evidence is gathered together. Rather, it gradually forms as each element that may lead to the suspect's conviction accumulates... Criminal litigation reasoning does not follow a binary system of true or false but follows a principle of gradual escalation... A person who becomes an object of suspicion cannot be completely innocent. Suspicion inherently contains the judge's reasoning factor, a certain degree of guilt of the suspect, and a limited criminal punishment. A suspect who is always under suspicion will not be declared innocent but will receive partial punishment. When people's reasoning reaches a certain level, they have every reason to engage in a dual-action activity: imposing punishment based on the information gathered while simultaneously using this preliminary punishment to obtain unclear truths." Thus, the torture of the 18th century became a peculiar spectacle: "The ritual of producing truth synchronizes with the ritual of implementing punishment. The tortured body is both the object of punishment and the place where the truth is forcibly obtained. Moreover, just as reasoning is both a factor in investigation and a fragment of guilt determination, the regulated pain caused by judicial torture serves as both a means of punishment and a means of investigation." Moreover, both factors are applied to the human body.

Torture as Public Punishment

(1) Characteristics of public punishment
In public punishment, the body again becomes the object of torture. Everything revealed in the secret investigative process is once again publicly displayed through the body. This practice can take several forms: 1) making the criminal the announcer of their own crime; 2) reviving the scene of confession; 3) linking public execution with the crime itself, such as executing the prisoner at the scene of the crime; 4) the slow process of execution, the sudden dramatic moments, and the prisoner's cries and suffering can become the final evidence of the judicial ritual's conclusion. "Every moment of pain at the moment of death expresses a certain truth. However, on the execution ground, this expression is even stronger because the pain of the body promotes this expression."

It is noteworthy that from torture to execution, the body of the prisoner repeatedly generates or replicates the truth of the crime, highlighting that "the defendant bears this crime with their own body." The body is subjected to multiple tortures, thus becoming a composite that bears the reality of actions and investigative results, litigation documents, and criminal statements, as well as crime and punishment. Therefore, it is a fundamental factor in the sacred criminal procedure. It must be a collaborator in a procedure centered around the monarch's terrifying power, namely the plaintiff's and confidentiality rights.

(2) Public execution as a political ritual
In ancient law, criminal acts were seen not only as offenses against the victim but also as offenses against the monarch, as the law embodies the monarch's power. The monarch does not arbitrate between the two parties or distinguish the exercise of individual rights; rather, it is a direct response to those who offend him. The punishment of the defendant, in the eyes of the monarch, serves as compensation for the offense against him and as a direct revenge for such an offense. "The material-political power of the monarch is embodied in the law... In the most ordinary punishment, in the most trivial details of legal forms, the active force of revenge dominates." Thus, public execution has a "judicial-political" function; "it is a ritual for restoring the monarch's authority that has been temporarily harmed," a significant ceremony for demonstrating the regained power of the monarch, "it exercises overwhelming force against the criminals who have humiliated the monarch's authority. Its purpose is less to restore a certain balance than to develop the stark contrast between the subjects who dare to trample on the law and the all-powerful monarch who displays his power." "Public execution is not about restoring justice but about reviving power." Eighteenth-century legal scholars believed that public execution was to "kill a chicken to scare the monkeys," while Foucault believed that this "demonstrative economy" originated in the Enlightenment era, while public execution came from even more ancient times. Therefore, public execution "is a policy of terror, using the bodies of criminals to make everyone aware of the monarch's infinite existence."

From this perspective, it is not difficult to find several characteristics of this public execution ritual. First, "the disparity of power between the two sides and the irreversible tilt is a fundamental element of public execution. The body, erased and turned to ashes by the monarch's infinite power, is not only the theoretical limit of punishment but also the practical limit." Second, public execution is not only a ceremony celebrating victory but also includes or reproduces the scene of conflict, namely the direct action of the executioner against the prisoner. Third, the monarch often unilaterally interrupts the execution process (granting clemency), demonstrating that he "not only represents the power to carry out legal revenge but also the power to interrupt the law and revenge. He should be the unique ruler, the only one who can cleanse the crimes committed against him. Although he indeed authorizes the court to exercise his power of justice, he does not transfer this power. He still retains this power in its entirety. He can arbitrarily revoke or increase sentences."

Reasons for the Existence of Torture and Public Execution

First, some have noted that the existence of torture and public execution is a result of a production system; in earlier societies, labor power and even human bodies did not have the utility and value of a commercial society. Second, from a demographic perspective, low birth rates, high mortality rates, and continuous natural and man-made disasters made people accustomed to death. Third, the ancient regime faced constant uprisings and civil wars, requiring the monarch to continually consolidate his power. In addition, Foucault believes that we should see that "the truth-power relationship has always been at the core of all punishment mechanisms, and it remains so in current penal practices, albeit in different forms and with different effects." Therefore, it is always a stage necessary for revealing the truth and demonstrating power. Enlightenment thinkers criticized its brutality, but this brutality has a dual effect: "It serves as a principle connecting crime and punishment and intensifies the punishment of crime. It provides a stage for demonstrating the truth and power. It is also the climax of the investigative ritual and the monarch's celebration of victory. It combines the two through the tortured body." Enlightenment thinkers' efforts to expel violence are, in fact, an attempt to prove the heterogeneity between "punishable crimes" and "punishments imposed by power." Foucault believes that the violent factors in torture and public execution are not a simple product of the "law of revenge"; they are essentially "the effect of a certain power mechanism in the punishment ritual"—"this power does not need to explain why it implements the law but should demonstrate who its enemies are and show them the terrifying power it releases. This power strives to restore its effect through its display as 'supreme power' without continuous supervision. This power is similar to a 'state of civil war.'"

Why Humanitarian Punishment Replaces Brutal Punishment?—The Role of the Public

Foucault believes that the primary reason to analyze is the functional application of public execution and its long-term chaotic roots, which is the issue of the role of the public. First, the transformation of the public's role. "In the ritual of public execution, the main role is the public. Their actual and direct presence is essential for holding such a ritual," but in this scene, the role of the public is ambiguous. The first role of the public is as spectators; the right to witness is their due right. The second role of the public is as participants; in public executions, "the public's revenge is summoned, becoming a secondary component of the monarch's revenge," "for the onlookers, the criminal is both a warning example and a target for attack." There are many instances of the public directly attacking the criminal during public executions. In the third role, the public becomes participants on the other side, attacking the judgment and the power. "When the public gathers around the guillotine, they are not only there to witness the prisoner's suffering and to stir the executioner's blood but also to hear a person who has lost everything curse the judge, the law, the government, and religion." These execution rituals should only demonstrate the deterrent power of the monarch, but they also have a carnival aspect, where the law is subverted, authority is mocked, and the criminal becomes a hero, with honor and disgrace reversed. The most important and politically dangerous reason for these disadvantages is that the public feels closer to those being punished than ever before, and like those individuals, the public feels more severely threatened by unrestricted legitimate violence than ever before. Therefore, the public gathered at the execution site becomes an indirect "victim."

The "role" is only one aspect of the problem. When new crime literature replaces the glorification of criminals in past crime literature with investigation and clever plotting, the public's interest shifts from bloody scenes to the intellectual battle of discovering crimes with the end of public executions.

Part Two: Punishment#

Chapter One: Universal Punishment#

Further Discussion on Humanitarian Punishment Replacing Brutal Punishment

(1) The Reformist's Perspective
In the late 18th century, protests against public executions increased, and reformers proposed many reasons, one of which was that public execution "provides a stage for the struggle between the king's violence and the public's violence, making it dangerous." "In this dangerous ritualized violence, both sides exceed the legitimate exercise of power. In their view, tyranny faces rebellion, and the two are mutually causal. This is a double danger. Therefore, criminal justice should not seek revenge but should only impose punishment." This is clearly related to the social crisis of the 17th and 18th centuries. Additionally, reformers also proposed that "even when punishing the most despicable murderer, there is at least one thing about him that should be respected, namely his 'humanity.'" This is clearly influenced by Enlightenment thought, which "contrasts humanity with the barbarity of public execution, not as a subject of empirical knowledge but as a legal limitation, a boundary for the legitimacy of punitive power. What is mentioned here is not a goal that must be achieved to reform people but something that should not be touched to respect humanity." The famous saying of the ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras, "Man is the measure of all things," is once again brought up, but this time, humanity has become the measure of power.

Historically, the process of relaxing punishment in the 18th century coincided with a period when the severity of crime seemed to diminish. This is a dual movement but has a profound background. From the perspective of crime trends, property crimes have significantly increased, and large criminal organizations have disbanded. This is related to several historical processes. The first process is the change in economic pressure; the rapid development of capitalism in the 17th and 18th centuries and the rapid population growth led to increased pressure for wealth. The second process is that the law is actually stricter than in the past. Crime has gradually shifted from personal injury to property infringement. This concentration of crime has led to a demand for a more refined and efficient judiciary. Upon careful analysis, critics' attacks on past judicial practices are less about power abuse and more about "being associated with a certain lawless state." The situation in France is a typical representation, where power is too chaotic and dispersed, accompanied by the excessive power of the monarch. "The judiciary combines weakness and tyranny, both showing off and full of loopholes." Reformers keenly see that the root of this problem lies in the monarch's supreme power. Therefore, criminal law reform actually calls for a brand new power strategy, and various interests are involved in this reshuffling process. Everyone reached a consensus on the goal of reform: "The right to judge should no longer depend on the countless, disjointed, and sometimes contradictory privileges of the monarch but should depend on the public power with continuous effects." Therefore, the primary goal of reform is: "To transform the punishment and suppression of illegal activities into a regulated function that develops in sync with society; not to punish less but to punish more effectively; perhaps to mitigate the severity of punishment, but the goal is to make punishment more universal and necessary; to embed punitive power more deeply into society itself."

(2) Illegal Activities and Criminal Law Reform
"Illegal activities" is a very important concept in this book. In Foucault's view, it is not merely a behavior but a trend of action belonging to a specific group, even a "condition of political and economic operation in contemporary society," that is, "under the old regime, each social class had its own tolerated illegal activities: ignoring the law and disobeying orders." Illegal activities have two extremes: one extreme is the privilege of the upper class, which becomes a completely legal form; the other extreme is the general disobedience of the lower class. Here, Foucault keenly observes: "In principle, the most despised class among the residents has no privileges, but they gain a space of tolerance at the margins of the laws and customs imposed on them. This is a space they obtain through violence or stubborn persistence. This space is their necessary condition for survival, and thus they are often ready to fight to defend it. Various attempts to compress this space or to reaffirm old laws or improve arrest methods arise from time to time. Such efforts cause public unrest, just as the reduction of certain privileges causes unease among the nobility, clergy, and bourgeoisie." "Each class has its own unique necessary illegal activities." Criminal law incorporates a large number of illegal activities belonging to the lower classes into the definition of crime. For example, tax evasion and smuggling are ways for the lower classes to survive, so it is not surprising that the public has a dual attitude toward crime. "A complex atmosphere of praise and condemnation forms around crime. The public sometimes provides effective help and sometimes harbors fear; these two attitudes are only a stone's throw apart... The illegal activities of the public contain a series of criminal factors. These factors are both the extreme forms of illegal activities and the inherent threats to illegal activities."

In the early stages of capitalism's expansion, capitalism needed these illegal activities, so the attitude toward illegal activities shifted from tolerance to encouragement, such as smuggling. However, in the later stages, the situation reversed; during this period, society shifted from "judicial-political oppression" to "deprivation of means of labor-deprivation of labor products," and the target of crime shifted from personal injury to property, which capitalism could not allow, so illegal activities had to be punished. However, the large number of property infringements made enforcement difficult, so a more effective and continuous strategy was needed to replace the temporary and unregulated mechanisms. "In summary, criminal law reform arises at the intersection of the struggle against the supreme power of the monarch and the struggle against the underground power of commonplace illegal activities."

In fact, "supreme power-illegal activities" is a pair of symbiotic entities, and a complete network forms between them. It is hard to say which is the cause of which, but the two seem to be mutually conditional. The most obvious is that in the form of public execution, "the monarch's infinite power and the ever-active illegal activities of the public converge in the most vivid way. The humanity in the judgment is a criterion for the punishment system, which should establish the boundaries between the monarch and the public. The 'human' that should be respected in the judgment is the judicial and moral form of this dual definition." In the actual historical process, the focus of criminal law reform is indeed on suppressing illegal activities, but not to eliminate them, as it lacks the ability to do so: "Any criminal law system should be seen as a mechanism for managing illegal activities with distinctions rather than a mechanism aimed at completely eliminating illegal activities."

(3) The Symbolization of Punitive Power
In criminal law reform, the contract theory is an important justification. The criminal is seen as violating the social contract, becoming an enemy of society. Therefore, "punitive power has shifted from the monarch's revenge to the defense of society." However, not everyone agrees to impose unrestrained punishment on criminals; this is, in fact, a return to supreme power. Therefore, it is necessary to impose necessary restrictions on punishment.

The principle of moderation in punishment is first expressed as a "mental discourse." Humanity is reintroduced, which is clearly influenced by Enlightenment thought. Behind this discourse is a consideration of the "consequences of controlling power," which must measure the cost and benefit of punishment with "economics"; "humanitarian" is merely a decent name for this calculation.

Should the focus of punishment be on the past—the consequences of crime—or the future—the possibility of increased daily illegal activities? A consensus quickly emerged: "What people need to consider is not past crimes but future chaos. The effect people should aim for is to make it impossible for wrongdoers to have the desire to reoffend and for imitators to emerge. Therefore, punishment should be an art of creating effects. People should not use a large number of punishments to deal with a large number of crimes, but should correspond the two series according to the effects of crime and punishment. Crimes without successors do not need punishment."

This is not a new perspective; in past tortures, the function of preventing future crimes also existed, but there are distinctions between the two. "In the punishment of public torture and execution, the punishment is a response to crime. It demonstrates the crime while also showcasing the monarch's power to subdue it. In the punishment based on its own effects, the punishment must be attributed to the crime but is expressed in the most cautious and restrained manner. The ideal outcome should be to prevent the reappearance of either. Punishment is no longer a display ritual but a symbol of obstruction. This symbolic tendency of punishment tends to subvert the entire field of secular criminal activities." That is, a change from "visualization" to "symbolization."

The principles related to the symbolic technology of punitive power include the following: First, the principle of minimalism (proportionality), "to make the desire to avoid punishment slightly stronger than the desire to commit crimes." Second, the principle of sufficient imagination. "Punishment should utilize not the body but representation. More accurately, if it utilizes the body, then the body is primarily an object of representation rather than an object of pain." "Denying public execution provides a possibility for rational expression: the representation of punishment should be expanded as much as possible, rather than the fact of corporal punishment." Third, the principle of side effects. The most important aspect of punishment is to be displayed to the audience, thus producing a "decentralized reinforcement effect," where the criminal becomes the least important. According to Beccaria, "when sentencing according to crimes, people should choose the kind of punishment that leaves the most lasting impression on the public mind while being the least cruel to the criminal." Fourth, the principle of absolute certainty. "Nothing weakens the legal mechanism more than the hope of leniency." A close link between "crime-punishment" must be established, and absolute certainty must be given to the punishment imposed. Fifth, the principle of common truth. The proof method of torture has deviated from the general theory of proof. This difference "occurs when the punitive power needs to create an atmosphere of undeniable evidence for its own purposes, which can lead to wrongful convictions." To establish the necessary connection between "crime-punishment," convictions must be based on the facts of the crime, and thus reasoning and evidence must align with general proof theory. Sixth, the principle of detailed regulations. "The law should not cultivate hopes of acquittal through silence." Seventh, the principle of intervening in criminal tendencies. For repeat offenders, the goal is not the responsible party but their unrepentant tendencies.

The Arrangement of Punitive Power

Thus, the seemingly "humane" penal system is behind "a carefully calculated economy of punitive power." However, these principles also change the points of power: no longer through the ritual games of excessive pain and public humiliation in public execution but through the spirit, more precisely, through the careful dissemination of representations and symbols in the minds of all people.

Starting from the eradication of illegal activities, a boundary of punishment is designed to control punitive power. From this starting point, two routes emerge that objectify crime and criminals. On one hand, the criminal is treated as a public enemy, opposing society and separating from the collective, becoming an "abnormal" person, ultimately becoming an object of "science" and subject to "treatment." On the other hand, the effectiveness of punitive power is measured. In both cases, it is not difficult to find that the power relations supporting punitive activities begin to increase a corresponding "object relation," and this objectification process is seen by Foucault as originating from "the strategy of power and its use." However, these two processes are not synchronized; the concept of "criminal" takes time to emerge, but the objectification of crime synchronizes with the restructuring of punitive power, aided by the discourse of Enlightenment thought. This discourse provides a universal prescription: "Power uses semiotics as a tool, treating 'spirit' (mind) as a surface to be inscribed; conquering the body by controlling thoughts; analyzing representations as a principle of bodily politics." "The foolish tyrant binds his slaves with iron chains, while the true politician binds them more tightly with the chains of their own thoughts. It is from this solid rationality that he tightly grasps the end of the chains." In this political anatomy, the body will be redefined and re-assigned roles. This new political anatomy combines two opposing routes; on one hand, it uses natural cases to oppose natural nature to exclude criminals, while on the other hand, it uses carefully calculated punitive economics to control crime.

Chapter Three: The Scene of the Guillotine#

Torture

Torture is part of corporal punishment, which has two functions: one is torture as an investigative tool, and the other is torture as a method of public execution.

Torture as an Investigative Tool

Torture as Public Punishment

Reasons for the Existence of Torture and Public Execution

Why Humanitarian Punishment Replaces Brutal Punishment?—The Role of the Public

Part Two: Punishment#

Chapter One: Universal Punishment#

Further Discussion on Humanitarian Punishment Replacing Brutal Punishment