A livestreamed death by firing squad will change the US for ever

Michel Foucault, the French philosopher who in the mid-70s wrote about discipline and punishment, can help us understand the United States’ lurch toward public executions.

It was Foucault’s belief that in pre-modern societies, public punishment was wielded as a theatrical exhibition of absolute sovereign power. This was deemed necessary because crime was seen as a direct attack on the ruler. Public punishments, like whippings, brandings, and executions, marked the criminal's body with the law’s retribution.

By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, public punishment began to fade from view because the state recognised that hidden, continuous discipline – in the shape of prison systems and surveillance – is a more efficient way to control bodies and populations. Instead of marking the criminal’s body, Foucault argued, institutions began to target his mind, behaviour, and daily habits.

Foucault put these theories to paper long before the internet was made accessible to the public. What would he make of the US plan to livestream a death by firing squad? Our screens will abstract from the punishment and neuter its intended impact; normalising – not deterring – violence.