Abstract

This chapter notes the complex and unsatisfying efforts to distinguish between punishment and regulation, and reframes the discussion of punishment and regulation by labeling the former law and the latter police. Doing so relocates this classification in a particular historical genealogy. Reconceptualizing the terms of the discussion suggests that while law operates on the individual, the object of police regulation tends to be collective. One of the distinctions frequently invoked as crucial to the difference between punishment and regulation is the difference between private and public. However, the notion of private law and public regulation relies on an overly simplistic model and history of law. Comparing punishment and regulation is like comparing apples and oranges, because they are two fundamentally different things. Regulation is an empty label unless it is combined with a mode of governance. That mode of governance, which parallels and complements law, is the concept of police. Police and law are contemporary manifestations of the ancient Greek distinction between household governance and public governance.