Admittedly, the brutality used to punish the soldiers who attempted to leave the camp in this case might be due to the fact that they had mutinied and had gone so far as to hold their commanding officer prisoner. This case is significant, however, for it shows that the regime of internment that was based on the actual or implicit threat of the use of force was not effective: it proved inadequate to deter the soldiers from passing out of the gates of the camp. What was aimed for was a system that would have the very idea of internment and of the impossibility of desertion imprinted on the minds of the soldiers so as to prevent them from escaping in the first place and to spare the authorities having recourse to this kind of brutal force.

XREF: Builds on the earlier point that surveillance aimed to bind soldiers' minds rather than just bodies (loc 664), and that punishment shifted to ensuring no crime escapes (loc 628). SEED: The failure of coercive force to deter desertion — and its replacement by internalized discipline — offers a rich angle on how punitive regimes must give way to ideological control. Builds on: "Surveillance aimed to bind soldiers' minds, not just bodies."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 666