Chapter 8 will look at the so-called 'post-Marxist' sociologies of punish¬ment. This body of work takes for granted the relationship between penal systems and the economic systems of the societies in which they exist, and also accepts the importance of penal systems as techniques of repression. However, the analysis of power to be found in the works of 'post-Marxists' such as Michel Foucault is rather different from that in orthodox Marxist works. There is also a much more concrete engagement with the specific exercise of power and repression in the actual practices of punishment, than can be found in the more abstract writings of orthodox Marxists.