Law Commons^™

Michel Foucault famously argued that punishment was an expression of power—a way for the State to shore up and legitimize its political authority. Foucault attributed the historical shift away from public torture and corporal punishment, which occurred during the 19th century, to the availability of new techniques of social control. However, corporal and capital punishment (what we term shock punishment) persists in many penal systems to this day, suggesting that these countries have for some reason not fully undergone this penal evolution. Using the experiences of Hong Kong and Singapore as case studies, we attempt to explain why this is …