"Deviancy Control": On Stanley Cohen's Kinship With Michel Foucault

Stanley Cohen is a prominent British expert in subculture study. The social control culture constitutes a particularly important part of his study. According to Cohen, there have been two transformations in the master patterns for"controlling deviancy"in Western industrial societies. The first one takes place between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is characterized by the transition from public execution to the penalties of prison. Michel Foucault has researched deeply into this transformation. Since the 1960s, the very idea of imprisonment has been under constant attack. Lacking faith in the traditional closed institutions (prison), people turn to a series of more"open", community control measures. This marks the beginning of the second transformation, which is Cohen's focus of attention. To study this transformation, Cohen is never beyond the frame set by Foucault. However, this kind of kinship has never been looked at before. This thesis is such an attempt. The significance of the research lies in that it will broaden the analysis further and shed some light on the subculture study in China.In order to comprehend the patterns of today's"deviancy control", Cohen adopts Foucault's notions of"disciplinary society","panopticism", as well as"carceral archipelago". In other words, Foucault has provided a vocabulary for Cohen to comprehend these recent changes relating to"deviancy control". All these are dealt with by Chapter One. Moreover, Cohen inherits Foucault's"power/knowledge"to make sense of the foundation and the future trends of today's"deviancy control". And these are covered by Chapter Two and Three respectively. In the final analysis, Cohen's idea of"deviancy control"originates in Foucault's"power/knowledge".