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Brittany Hutton

31 March 2013

LAWS 70705 – Law and Political Thought Punishment Final – Winter 2013

Foucault’s Public Spectacle in Modern Society: Manifestation, Purpose and Use

Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2

Methodology ........................................................................................................................................... 4

Public Spectacle: History, Purpose and Prolongation .............................................................................. 5

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 5

History ................................................................................................................................................. 6

Purpose ............................................................................................................................................... 7

Prolongation ........................................................................................................................................ 8

Conclusion of Section ........................................................................................................................ 11

State as a Disciplinary Society: Police, Control, Citizens and the Purpose of the Public Spectacles in

Modern Times ....................................................................................................................................... 11

Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 11

Police, Control, Citizens .................................................................................................................... 12

Purpose of the Modern Police Action as Public Spectacle .................................................................. 14

Conclusion of Section ........................................................................................................................ 16

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................ 17

Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 20

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Introduction

“A secret punishment is a punishment half wasted.”

(Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish,1995, page 111).

Imagine attending a Mardi Gras party in Sydney, Australia, earlier this year. You go with

a few friends to spend a night of frivolities before adhering to the strict process of Lent for the

next forty days. As the night progresses, you drink, party and be merry. Eventually, the police

come to the area where you have been partying. Separated from your friends, you think nothing

of the police presence behind you. Noticeable intoxicated, the police approach you and the next

thing you remember is the feeling of cold metal on your wrists. You have been arrested by the

police, but they have not given you any reason why. Understandably, you are frightened and start

exhibiting fear. The officers start to berate and belittle you. Because you will not stop crying, the

police elbow you and punch you so hard you fall to the ground. Blood is everywhere. People are

screaming. And the Associated Press is catching this all on tape. The officers kick you and

snicker as you cry. After a few minutes of “beating”, you eventually quiet down. The officers

then lead you away presumably to a police station for holding.

One young man did not have to imagine this, because he lived it (SydneyMardiGras2013,

“Sydney Mardi Gras 2013| Police Brutality”, 2013). Once the Associated Press video was

uploaded onto YouTube, major news outlets such as CNN, BBC, Fox News and others ran the

story. People reacted with horror, concern, outrage and confirmation over the incident. The event

showed to some that police brutality exists around the world, whereas to others, the video

confirmed their belief that police brutality is so prolific it has spread across the globe. Regardless

of how police brutality has spread, the important concept to understand is why police brutality

exists in the first place. I argue that police brutality exists because it has become the modern

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public spectacle. The purpose of police brutality is to maintain order by showing the citizenry

what it can and cannot do. Without another public arena to do this, police brutality has become

exaggerated and proliferates due to the belief of the ruling classes that societies have delved into

chaos. To understand the role of police brutality, however, we must first delve into the history of

the public spectacle and then to the proliferation of the public spectacle. Once we do this, we

must also explore the molding of modern Western societies into the disciplinary society to

eventually create structured societies.

Michel Foucault states in his work, Discipline and Punish that in order to create a

structured society, there has to be a demonstration of power over the civilian populace (1995).

This control takes the form in the society of the spectacle as public displays of torture or public

spectacles (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995). These public displays demonstrate to the populace

what is or is not allowed in the realms of the state, while they punish and embarrass the offender

of the act. The illegal act is being demonstrated to the people as a pathway to social chaos. The

state makes the populace feel that it is necessary to maintain control of the state through the act

of giving the ruling class power. The ruling class is seen as an entity that could fix the ills of

society and reinstitute control over that society (Rothman, 1990, pp 80-81). However, the ruling

class feels that the only means of control over the people is through violence. Though other

means of control exist, violence is seen as swift and easy to manipulate, especially in the form of

the public spectacle. Because of these characteristics, public spectacle is used by the ruling class

to demonstrate the power of the state and to punish any wrongdoings by the citizenry. This event

according to Foucault drove the creation of the disciplinary society (“Discipline and Punish”,

1995).

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Contrary to Foucault though, I argue that the public spectacle outside of prisons,

especially police brutality, constitutes a large part of the disciplinary society. These societies

must contain public spectacles in order to maintain order of the citizenry. In modern Western

disciplinary societies, nothing exists to scare people into following the ruling class’ discretion

and order. The police have filled this void with their exaggerated events of police brutality.

Those actions constitute a public spectacle that can show the citizenry not only what will be

inflicted upon them if they commit certain actions, but the event also shows the embarrassment

that comes when one commits the act. I therefore present this work as a study of police brutality

as public spectacle in modern Western disciplinary societies.

Throughout this study I will move through the process of the ruling class creating a

structured society by first looking at the concept of the public spectacle and its history. The

spectacle will be followed from historic events such as public executions, before the concept will

be brought into the modern day with police brutality. Once the concept of the public spectacle is

discussed, I will move forward to the disciplinary society and its implementation of the public

spectacle as a means of social control.

Methodology

This study was completed with literature and video analysis. I researched videos form

YouTube using the keywords “police brutality USA” and “police brutality”. The majority of

videos used for this project concerned abuses in the United States, but a few, such as the video

described in the introduction, concerned abuses in other Western nations. All of the

generalizations in this study only apply to modern, Western societies such as the United States,

Australia and Western Europe. I also take no sides in this paper on whether or not police

brutality is a positive or a negative thing.

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The following are terms used in this paper:

Public spectacle - Event that is performed for all to see. Equated with torture and violence.

Police brutality - Actions that are performed for all to see. Equated with torture and violence.

Structured society -Society in which order is maintained and crime and non-state violence is

minimal.

State – Stratified society that is unequal and has a ruling class that controls resources.

Rulers/Ruling Class/ Sovereign/Leaders – People who hold power over a citizenry by

controlling resources. Will be used interchangeable.

Public Spectacle: History, Purpose and Prolongation

Introduction

Punishment constituted a way to maintain order and ensure the citizenry listened to those

in power (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995). Before states came into being, punishment was

thought to be an institution confined to the home (Karras, 1996, pp 14-15). Eventually as the

problem of ‘deviancy’ started to spread into society, the ruling class attempted to convince the

citizenry that the ‘old system’ of family and church punishment was no longer working

(Rothman, 1990, pp 80-81). This claim was supposed to convince the people that they should

hand over their power of punishment to the ruling class. When punishment moved from the

people to the state, “As a result, justice no longer [took] public responsibility for the violence

that [was] bound up with its practice.” (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 9). Instead of an

unregulated action, punishment became a regulated institution for social control. After this move

to social control, punishment quickly took the form of public spectacle. People were punished in

front of others in order to embarrass the perpetrator and to ensure that society knew what would

happen if they followed the same path (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 8). However, as time

went by, there was a call for public spectacle to be done away with. The state felt it was a

mockery, and the people said it was too violent (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 15).

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Therefore, in theory, the public spectacle was done away with in society for more private

punishment in the prison. Once the public execution was moved into the more private realm of

the prison, however, something was required to take its place as a fear mechanism for the ruling

class to use over the populace. As time went by, the public spectacle became embodied as the

public displays of police brutality. Hence, public spectacle never died. It simply was manipulated

to fit the current situation, and its current adaptation lies in the form of police brutality.

History

Though, many want to separate the concept of police brutality away from the spectacle,

the modern situation of police brutality can only be comprehended when the history of the

spectacle is understood. Foucault starts off Discipline and Punish with a graphic description of a

violent public spectacle (1995 pp 3-8). He recounts the story of Damiens the regicide, who in

1757 was tortured by ripping flesh off of his body with red hot pinchers, while a burning mixture

was poured onto his wounds. The man was then drawn and quartered. However, the man’s

quartering was not accomplished on the first try. The magistrates had to re-quarter him. Once the

man was dead, his body was burned to rid the village of his presence. This form of punishment

permeated medieval Europe and can be found in a multitude of places. Men could also be shown

off in different villages with some sort of branding that would signal him as a criminal (Karras

1996, pp 14-15). The rulers would also place people in the stakes where the populace would

insult, berate and throw rotten vegetables at the person. This act was to embarrass the

perpetrator, while showing those who watched the horror, that they would be inflicted with the

same pain if they followed a similar path (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995). Foucault states, “It’s

the idea of punishment as scandal, shame and humiliation of the one who has committed an

infraction. His offense is publicized; his person is exhibited in public; a reaction of aversion,

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contempt, and condemnation is induced in the public” (“Truth and Juridical Forms” in Power

1994, pp 54). Ultimately, these acts were to give power to the rulers.

Purpose

Feeling disempowered by the committed act, the purpose behind the act of punishing

individuals with the public spectacle, was to give authority back to the disempowered

sovereignty (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 48-53). Executions, for instance, were seen as

akin to victories on the battlefield (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 50). These victories would

re-empower the ruling class. Just the power to enforce these spectacles was supposed to show the

authority the ruling class had over their subjects (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 49; 80).

These ruling classes felt the spectacle would give them back their power to mold their subjects

(“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 164). Foucault states, “Discipline is no longer simply an art

of distributing bodies, or extracting time from them and accumulating it, but of composing forces

in order to obtain an efficient machine [emphasis added]” (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp

164). Foucault’s “docile bodies” thus became a positive outcome of the public spectacle for the

ruling class (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995). The ruling class’ subjects would no longer question

rulers’ authority, because only the ruling class would have the power to teach the citizenry how

not to go over the thin line between ‘normalcy and deviancy’ (Rothman, 1990, pp 119-120).

David Rothman, a punishment scholar, states, “By demonstrating how regularity and discipline

transformed the most corrupt persons, it would reawaken the public to these virtues” (Rothman,

1990, pp 105-107). Hence, the public spectacle gave way for the state to take over the ruling

class’ position, mold the citizenry into the image of a structured society, and keep the citizenry in

a subordinated position.

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The state used the idea of the public spectacle to keep its citizenry docile. Punishment

was seen as a way to keep people subordinated and malleable. In this fashion, Foucault states in

Discipline and Punish about the use of punishment, “Public punishment is the ceremony of

immediate recoding” (1995, pp 110). For the state, public spectacle became a way to instill its

own values into its citizenry. Between the public spectacle and the state holding the social

contract between it and its people, the citizenry was forced to submit to the state. However, in

any society, there are people who go against the state’s norms and rules. The public spectacle

does not seem strong enough to these dissuaders to avoid rising up against the state. Peter

Berger, a sociologist, helps explain why certain people do not submit to the public spectacle

(Berger, 1990, pp 55-58). He states that people are masochists (Berger, 1990, pp 55-58). Some

people want to feel pain, and others want to be dominated. Those who want to be dominated,

submit willingly to the state and its public spectacle. Conversely, those who want to feel pain, do

not submit, and instead insist to go against the state knowing they will encounter pain. By the

end of any public spectacle, however, both categories of people [those who want to feel pain and

those who want to be dominated] achieve their desires and eventually both will submit to the

state. Thus, the state ends up with one lump category of docile bodies.

Prolongation

Though the state has docile bodies, they must maintain the citizenry in this malleable

category if it wishes to exercise its power. Public spectacles constitute the main practice that

states use outside of mass incarceration, to keep people docile. In the past, public spectacles took

the form of torture, and/or branding before moving to public executions (Karras, 1996). Though

some will argue that public spectacle has disappeared from modern society, it still exists today.

In modern society, public spectacle takes the form police brutality. It fulfills Foucault’s

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definition of public spectacle as something that is used to punish the “wrong-doer” and to keep

the rest of society in line (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995). We see this with police and protest

interactions. Officers will take the strongest members of the group at the front of the charge, beat

them and arrest them to encourage the others to disperse (NATOINDYMEDIA, “Police Brutality

at #NONATO March – Chicago NATO Summit 2012, 2012; LeditRenArt, “Canada Quebec

Montreal Student Protest Police Brutality 2013 Live Film Footage”, 2013). The officers will also

fire rubber bullets, bean bags, and air grenades at the group to inflict pain as punishment for the

occurrence. By the end of the event, the protestors are usually scrambling and will disperse if

their leaders have either been beaten, or beaten and arrested (NATOINDYMEDIA, “Police

Brutality at #NONATO March – Chicago NATO Summit 2012, 2012; LeditRenArt, “Canada

Quebec Montreal Student Protest Police Brutality 2013 Live Film Footage”, 2013). The state’s

goal in these brutality events is to eradicate the leaders, so the group will fail. Once the leaders

are taken out of the picture, the rest of the group will usually not continue on with the protest.

They may regroup and come back, but for the mean time, the state pictures the protestors as

docile bodies. The brutality event has been successful, with the dissuaders having been

domesticated into the sheep the state wants them to be. Without police brutality in these events,

the category of docile bodies would not have been kept, and the state would retain the pressures

against it that threaten its authority. Thus, police brutality has become the modern public

spectacle.

Police brutality can also take the form of Foucault’s “gratification-punishment” that was

present in historic forms of public spectacle (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 180). In this

form of punishment, the ruling class will reward good behavior or punish bad behavior

(“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 180). The reward-punishment system is supposed to train a

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person to understand what is acceptable and not, with regards to behavior. In Colonial America

accused ‘witches’ could be redeemed if the accused woman would confess her crimes (Karras,

1996). This was in a sense, a form of gratification-punishment. For the deed of witchcraft, the

woman was being punished. But, if she was to commit the good deed of confession, she would

be rewarded by being set “free”. Though being set “free”, either meant being killed swiftly or

being banished, the woman would be rewarded for her act by not being tortured anymore. The

same principle is used by police officers in “Crime Squads” (“Justice without Trial”, 1975, pp

68). Officers in Shefield in the 1960s formed a “Crime Squad” where they would use intense

tactics to either punish criminals who had gotten away with their crimes or to elicit confessions

out of criminals (“Justice without Trial”, 1975, pp 68). In the confessions, the criminal would be

beaten with batons, punched, kicked, and physically abused until the criminal performed the

good deed of confession. The officers felt they were punishing the criminals for their bad deed of

perpetrating a crime and refusing to confess. Once the criminal confessed, they were rewarded

with the cessation of the torture. Though this example is from the 1960s, this kind of police

brutality occurs frequently throughout the modern United States. The video “Police Brutality –

Cops vs San Diego Charger Fan Who is Down Syndrome 2013”, details the story of a man being

beaten because he did not state his identity to the cops (u0tube0video0critic, 2013). Though the

man with Down Syndrome did not understand what was going on, the police only stopped

beating him when he submitted to being arrested. While the man was fighting and not giving the

officers information, the officers continued to hit him as punishment. When the man finally

submitted, the officers rewarded him by stopping the torture. These examples show not only the

creation of docile bodies (attempting to get a confession), but methods that other public

spectacles share such as gratification-punishment methods.

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Conclusion of Section

Through examining the history, purpose and prolongation of the public spectacle, the

existence of police brutality can start to be explained. In performing public spectacles and its

modern equivalent of police brutality, rulers attempt to scare its citizenry into complying with its

rules and domination. The event of public spectacle has lasted throughout the ages to create

docile bodies for the ruling class to manipulate. These docile bodies, however, have to be

maintained with force. Through adaptation, the ruling class has been able to use police brutality

as a method to control its citizenry. When citizens see the events in person, they watch the

perpetrator either being embarrassed or being tortured for their act. This instills in the watcher

that the same will happen to them if they do not cease the path they are on. The ruling classes

have created the category of public spectacle that not only creates docile bodies, but is malleable

enough to adapt itself into a new method as time changes. The methods may stay the same such

as gratification-punishment, but the purpose remains the same: to keep the populace submitted to

those in power.

State as a Disciplinary Society: Police, Control, Citizens and the Purpose of the Public

Spectacles in Modern Times

Introduction

As states have progressed, the rulers have adapted many different ways to keep the

citizenry in line. Recently, punishment has become one of main ways to maintain control of the

populace. Rulers use mass incarceration with public spectacles of power to ensure no one rises

against the state within its own borders. The states that use punishment as the main interface

between itself and the citizenry have been called ‘disciplinary societies’ by Foucault (Based on

class discussions). Modern societies focus mostly on punishing its populace and keeping its

citizens docile. They do not have many other means to communicate with its citizens. Because of

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this lack of communication, the state needs a public spectacle that can be used to control the

citizenry. This comes in the face of police brutality.

In some modern Western societies, people agree that the police have control over their

actions. These people see the state as having a legitimate monopoly on violence. Police are seen

as ‘contact persons’ for the state (Chriss, 2011). The police are seen as state actors who carry the

same authority as the state (Chriss, 2011). When the police are seen as the state, they are granted

this monopoly on violence since police actions constitute the state’s actions (“The Police:

Mandate, Strategies and Appearances”, 1978, pp 8). Actions by both the state and the police are

used to control people and to dissuade anyone from rising up against the state. These actions

from the state and police are solidified in the public spectacle. Whether the quartering of the

killer of a ruler, or the torturing of a suspect to confess his crime, these events show the public

what will happen if they cross the line into deviancy.

Police, Control, Citizens

In today’s society, police brutality has become one method of ensuring “social control”.

Jerome H Skolnick, a sociologist, defines “social control” in Justice without Trial as, “[An

action that] must deal not merely with the maintenance of order, but with the quality of the order

that a given system is capable of sustaining and the procedures appropriate to the achievement of

such order (1975, pp 230). The police attempt to control what civilians see of the police world

and the world around the populace (“Rules, Colleagues, and Situationally Justified Actions”,

1978, 71). When an officer sees an action he disagrees with, he attempts to stop it. He wants to

push the state’s idea of appropriateness onto the person perpetrating the act (“Justice without

Trial”, 1975, pp 61). The officer has the state’s sanction of violence, so he can implement his

own will onto a situation and force a person to change their ways while in front of the officer

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(“The Police: Mandate, Strategies and Appearances”, 1978, pp 8). Then the officer has the state’s

power to punish anyone he feels does not adhere to the state’s idea of appropriateness. He can do

this by giving the person a ticket, physically stopping the action or behavior, or violently acting

upon the person to force them to stop the behavior. In this action the officer is demonstrating

how the society now views the idea of punishment. Skolnick states, “When law is viewed

primarily as an instrument of education or as an instrument of order, rather than as a goal in

itself, the society no longer conceives as punishment as a last resort to be used only reluctantly”

(“Justice without Trial”, 1975, pp 20). The society no longer sees punishment as a measure to

only be used sparingly, but the society now sees punishment as a tool to be used whenever

someone steps out of line. Thus, the police have the authority to commit violence when the

docile bodies do not adhere to their sheep-like state.

The police possess the authority to commit violence when someone steps out of line. This

authority, though, is not limited to the citizenry. The police force itself is seen as a military

apparatus that uses punishment to ensure that its members are docile and willing to receive any

orders they are given (“Above the Law”, 1993, pp 113-130). This institution contains ranks,

power, and violence. The officers are divided into individual ranks that determine the amount of

authority the person contains as a police officer (“Above the Law”, 1993, pp 113-130). Power is

granted to each rank, and this amount of power determines how the officer will interact with the

citizenry. If the officer is head of the SWAT team, he has the power to not only create docile

bodies of the citizenry by force, but he also has the power to kill anyone that does not agree with

the state.

As Foucault mentions in Discipline and Punish, the military can be seen as a machine for

the state (1995, pp 135-136). They do the state’s bidding, and violently enforce the state’s rules.

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The police are essentially the military for the state within its own borders. With this definition,

the actions of the police can be compared to the military’s action in the historic period. As public

spectacles re-empowered the sovereign because the event was likened to a military victory in

battle, an event of police brutality re-empowers the state, since the police’s victory is seen as

akin to the historic military’s victory (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 47-74).

Purpose of the Modern Police Action as Public Spectacle

The police while being likened to the military are connected to the state. Police actions

constitute state actions. When the state feels they are losing control of their populace, the police

can perform a brutality action that reminds the populace of state’s power. For instance, on 20

May 2012, in Chicago, Illinois, videographers captured film of the Chicago police department

beating anti-NATO protestors with batons and riot gear near downtown Chicago (CBS Chicago,

2012). The “Police Brutality at #NoNATO March - Chicago NATO Summit 2012” video by

NATOINDYMEDIA showed the worst of the protests. This protest lasted most of the evening,

but the highlights were captured in this video. Police beat protestors with batons, riot shields and

street materials in an attempt to “maintain order”. By the end of the video, at least four of the

protestors are shown bloody and incoherent from the beatings. One young protestor is faced

down and arrested by a police car. His colleagues are attempting to see if the young man is all

right, but he does not respond. However, the officers near the protestor ignore the calls from his

friend and almost smirk at the insinuation the man is dead. This event of police brutality

reminded the protestors and the city of Chicago who was in charge of the city. The purpose of

the event was to dissuade any more citizens from joining the ranks of the protestors. Though the

event made headlines, NATO continued on with US involvement, and the arrested protestors

went through the court process to punish them for their actions. In the end, the state retained

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control of the populace and dissuaded the protests from becoming larger. This police action was

called for by the state, and thus constitutes state action. The state simply used the police as their

own military to keep control over the city of Chicago. Without the police, the protests could have

upended state control over part of the populace. Instead, the state is simply chastised for its

actions, while most of its citizenry goes on with their daily lives as docile bodies. Police actions

like the operation against the NATO protesters help the state retain control, thus constituting

these police actions as public spectacles.

Police action though can show the state’s power, even when the actions are not against a

large group of people. In the video, “Police Brutality Leaves Man Mentally Disabled”, a man is

body slammed into a wall because an officer mistakes the man as a suspect in a burglary

(policecrimecom, 2013). The man was walking home from an event when a dark figure started

running after him. He quickened his pace since he was in a bad area of town and he thought the

dark figure was about to mug him. All of the sudden, the man is body slammed into a wall by an

officer. Over 20 minutes later, the man is still on the ground, bloody, with the officer walking

around him waiting for an ambulance. By the time the man reaches the emergency room, he is

brain dead. The officer does not apologize to the family. To make matters worse, the department

conducts no official investigation, though the body slam is caught on surveillance tape. The

family went to the local news, which discovered the officer in question had over nineteen cases

of excessive force filed against him and seven complaints against him though he had only been

with the sheriff’s department for five years. This event shows the police’s power in society. The

man they chased is now in a completely docile condition, so they state feels they have no reason

to apologize to his family. In the police department’s eyes, the officer executed the duties of his

office, and is thus, exempt from any disciplinary action. The man, on the other hand, ran away

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from the officer, thus threatening the office of the police, so the man had to be punished and

made into a docile body. This public spectacle helps show the citizenry that the police should

never be questioned and thus the state should never be questioned.

Conclusion of Section

Modern day states can easily be called disciplinary societies. The rulers’ main goals are

to keep the populace docile in order to maintain social control. This control, supposedly, allows

the society to become a structured society. In order to maintain control and create a structured

society, the state has to allocate its power to a military type institution that will maintain order

and keep the populace docile. This role is usually fulfilled by the police. The police use their

monopoly on violence to destroy any opposition. Though most of the time police action will not

result in injury, times do come where police action does result in physical injury and even death.

When injury does occur, police departments will ignore demands for apologies or calls for

restricting of its policies because the police feel they have done nothing wrong. The inflicting of

an injury, in the eyes of the police and the state, may have been purposeful in order to create a

docile body. For instance, the man who was running away from the officer before he was body

slammed was seen by the police as a potential threat to state security. He needed to be taken

down and made docile, so the threat would be eliminated. Though the process of taking him

down inflicted brain damage onto the man, the police feel their job was successful. They made a

potential threat docile. This type of public spectacle can be used by the state to show the extent

of force that its rulers can inflict upon the populace. By showing the citizenry this, the people

will see what happens to those who question the state’s rules. Though some will continue to

fight, most will not. Just as in a protest, if the police can take out the leaders of movements, the

movement and the drive to fight diminishes. The state understands how to create docility. In the

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modern technological age, threats to the state can come from anywhere. Through the use of

public spectacles such as police brutality, the state can manipulate its populace into submission,

thus eliminating most internal threats. Just as the military succeeds for the state when they win a

battle, it can be said that the police also succeed for the state when the force eliminates threats

found in non-docile citizenry.

Conclusion

Public spectacles have come a long distance from the embarrassment rituals of medieval

Europe. Foucault’s description of public spectacles seem very far from what we see as a society

today (1995, pp 3-18). Damiens, who was accused of regicide in 1757, suffered a horrendous

fate at the hand of the state. His flesh was ripped from his skin, a burning mixture of oil, wax,

resin and metals was poured into his wounds before he was drawn and quartered. Like many

during this time, he had to be quartered more than once. After a horrendous death, his body was

disposed of as if it was nothing more than waste. Though this spectacle seems pointless, in fact it

served a purpose for the rulers. It showed the citizenry what befell them if they proceeded down

Damiens’ same path. The event also embarrassed Damiens so he would repent of his sins.

Nevertheless, this event has correlates to modern public spectacles. Police brutality has taken the

place of public execution, but its purpose remains the same. When a protest occurs, the police

will take out the strongest members on the front lines, beat them horrendously and arrest them

for their role. This event is supposed to show other members of the protest what will befall them

if they follow in their leaders’ shoes. It also is supposed to embarrass the leaders to the point that

they lose their standing in the community. Though the aftermath may not occur in the way the

police wish it to, the event still has lasting effects on the populace.

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The toolbox of the historic executioner is also similar to the toolbox of the police officer.

Foucault’s gratification-punishment can be used by the police to get someone to submit to their

authority (“Discipline and Punish”, 1995, pp 180). The “Crime Squads” in Shefield in the 1960s

provide an example of this technique (“Justice Without Trial”, 1975, pp 60). Officers would go

after criminals who they needed a confession from in order to prosecute them. The officers

would then beat, kick, punch, berate, insult and physical abuse the criminal until he relented and

confessed. For the officers, they were punishing the bad deed of not confessing. Once the

criminal confessed, the officers relented as a reward. This is similar to the witch trials of

Colonial America where women would be tortured until they confessed to witchcraft (Karras,

1996). Once they confessed, they were rewarded by a cessation of the torture, and would be set

“free”. Though this event usually ended in them being killed as “pure” women, the method the

women went through can be seen as gratification-punishment. This powerful tool is used today

when officers try to elicit a response from a Down Syndrome man concerning his identity.

Officers punished the man for trying to hide his identity, though they eventually rewarded him

by a cessation of the torture once the man submitted to being arrested (“Police Brutality – Cops

vs San Diego Charger Fan Who is Down Syndrome 2013”, u0tube0video0critic, 2013). This tool

can influence the public spectacle by showing the citizenry what will happen if they do not

submit to the rulers’ authority, as well as, what happens when they do submit.

Public spectacles though have to have perpetrators that act as the state. In historic times

this could be the military or executioners. Public executions in medieval Europe were even

likened to a victory in battle for the military. These events restored the power of the sovereign

and reaffirmed the populace’s submission to the rulers. The police have replaced the military and

executioners, yet their victories are still likened to victories and submission. Social control is

Hutton 19

touted by the ruling class as being achieved when the police discredit those who try and question

the sovereign’s power. The goal to create a structured society is seen as being closer than ever

with every police victory. Police departments claim they are eradicating crime, and ‘deviancy’

with every arrest, while the state touts its social control as proof the modern society is safer than

before. In reality, every police action just reinforces the concept that the populace must be

submissive to the state, and that all threats will be dealt with accordingly.

The modern public spectacle of police brutality helps the state reinforce its norms and to

repress any type of opposition. A man can simply be on his way home from an event, see a dark

figure in a bad neighborhood and try to get away from it. The dark figure turns out to be a police

officer and before the man hears the officer identify himself, the man is body slammed into a

wall, and loses his identity. His body is still alive, but his brain is dead. His action of running

away is seen as opposition by the officer, and the officer knew he needed to crush this

opposition. The officer, therefore, takes drastic action, resulting in the man basically losing his

ability to live. Though the family feels the actions were unnecessary, the sheriff’s department

feels the officer completed his job to the best of his ability, so no internal investigation takes

place. The state does not intervene because their interest has been completed. This man presented

a threat, and now the man is a docile body and cannot constitute a threat anymore. The state’s

power is thus protected.

Public spectacles constitute a unique method in the disciplinary society. Unlike mass

incarceration, public spectacle affects a whole populace. Every citizen in the state is supposed to

learn from the event what they can and cannot do, and how they will be punished if they perform

the act. The perpetrator in a public spectacle is supposed to be embarrassed for his actions, and

along with incarceration, not only lose status in his society, but learn from his actions. These

Hutton 20

spectacles also show the extent a state will go to in order to maintain social control. This form of

punishment usually involves the most violent and harsh actions a state is willing to take against

its populace in public. Though a state may execute dissuaders in private in the penitentiary, the

public events of the spectacle usually constitute a fate worse than death. These events can result

in physical torture leadings to permanent damage. The person may not die from these events, but

he will never be able to live his life the same again. State actors, such as police, help bring the

public spectacle into the modern day. Whether threats exist online or in the physical world,

police brutality is supposed to quell any threat that arises. Thus, the state retains its authority

over its populace without fear of any opposition. Without the public spectacle, states could not

exercise complete control over its populace. Thus, in conjunction with mass incarceration, public

spectacles constitute historic and modern methods of punishment, which are supposed to quell

rebellion, eradicate opposition and create docile bodies that the state can then manipulate for its

own purposes. Without both forms of punishment, the disciplinary society would not have come

to dominate the modern Western world in the manner it has in the last two hundred years.

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