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For other uses, see Panopticon (disambiguation).
Panopticon blueprint by Jeremy Bentham, 1791
Panopticon blueprint by Jeremy Bentham, 1791

The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1785. A prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility is a place in which individuals are physically confined or interned and usually deprived of a range of Jeremy Bentham ( IPA: or) (15 February 1748&ndash6 June 1832 was an English Jurist, Philosopher, and legal and Social reformer The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience. Omniscience (ɒm'nɪsɪəns (or Omniscient Point-of-View in writing is the capacity to know everything infinitely or at least everything that can be known about a character "[1]

Bentham himself described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example. "[2]

Contents

Conceptual history

"Morals reformed - health preserved - industry invigorated - instruction diffused - public burthens lightened - Economy seated, as it were, upon a rock - the gordian knot of the poor-law not cut, but untied - all by a simple idea in Architecture!"[3]

Bentham derived the idea from the plan of a military school in Paris designed for easy supervision, itself conceived by his brother Samuel who arrived at it as a solution to the complexities involved in the handling of large numbers of men. The Gordian Knot is a Legend associated with Alexander the Great. This article deals chiefly with the English Poor Laws covering England and Wales A military academy or service academy (American English is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps of the Army the Navy Air Force Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city Sir Samuel Bentham ( 11 January 1757 in England - 31 May 1831 in London, England) was a noted English Bentham supplemented this principle with the idea of contract management; that is, an administration by contract as opposed to trust, where the director would have a pecuniary interest in lowering the average rate of mortality. The Panopticon was intended to be cheaper than the prisons of his time, as it required fewer staff; "Allow me to construct a prison on this model," Bentham requested to a Committee for the Reform of Criminal Law, "I will be the gaoler. Jail, or gaol (especially in Canada, Australia and NZ[http //www You will see . . . that the gaoler will have no salary -- will cost nothing to the nation. " As the watchmen cannot be seen, they need not be on duty at all times, effectively leaving the watching to the watched. According to Bentham's design, the prisoners would also be used as menial labour walking on wheels to spin looms or run a water wheel. This would decrease the cost of the prison and give a possible source of income. [4]

Bentham devoted a large part of his time and almost his whole fortune to promote the construction of a prison based on his scheme. After many years and innumerable political and financial difficulties, he eventually obtained a favourable sanction from Parliament for the purchase of a place to erect the prison, but in 1811 after Prime Minister Spencer Perceval (1809-1812)[5] refused to authorise the purchase of the land, the project was finally abandoned. TalkParliament#Screen-size. -->A  parliament is a Legislature, especially in those Year 1811 ( MDCCCXI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Spencer Perceval, KC (1 November 1762 &ndash 11 May 1812 was a British statesman and Prime Minister. In 1813 he was awarded a sum of £23,000 in compensation for his monetary loss which did little to alleviate Bentham's ensuing unhappiness. Year 1813 ( MDCCCXIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common

While the design did not come to fruition during Bentham's time, it has been seen as an important development. For instance, the design was invoked by Michel Foucault (in Discipline and Punish) as metaphor for modern "disciplinary" societies and its pervasive inclination to observe and normalise. Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Discipline and Punish The Birth of the Prison is a book written by the philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault proposes that not only prisons but all hierarchical structures like the army, the school, the hospital and the factory have evolved through history to resemble Bentham's Panopticon. @@@ main@@@ - title Hierarchy@@@ keywords structure; sociology; information@@@ review@@@ - The notoriety of the design today (although not its lasting influence in architectural realities) stems from Foucault's famous analysis of it.

Panoptic prison design

Prison Presidio Modelo, December 2005
Prison Presidio Modelo, December 2005
Prison Presidio Modelo, Inside one of the buildings - December 2005
Prison Presidio Modelo, Inside one of the buildings - December 2005

The architecture

incorporates a tower central to a circular building that is divided into cells, each cell extending the entire thickness of the building to allow inner and outer windows. The Presidio Modelo was a "model Prison " of Panopticon design built on the former Isla de Pinos (now the Isla de la Juventud) in Cuba The occupants of the cells are thus backlit, isolated from one another by walls, and subject to scrutiny both collectively and individually by an observer in the tower who remains unseen. Toward this end, Bentham envisioned not only venetian blinds on the tower observation ports but also maze-like connections among tower rooms to avoid glints of light or noise that might betray the presence of an observer

—Ben and Marthalee Barton [6]

The Panopticon is widely, but erroneously, believed to have influenced the design of Pentonville Prison in North London, Armagh Gaol in Northern Ireland, and Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. For other uses see Blinds (disambiguation For the desktop theming software see WindowBlinds. HM Prison Pentonville is a Prison built in 1842 on the Caledonian Road, North London. The Eastern State Penitentiary is a former state Prison in the United States. These, however, were Victorian examples of the Separate system, which was more about prisoner isolation than prisoner surveillance; in fact, the separate system makes surveillance quite difficult. The term Victorian architecture can refer to one of a number of Architectural styles predominantly employed during the Victorian era. Surveillance is the monitoring of Behavior. Systems surveillance is the process of monitoring the behavior of people objects or processes within systems for conformity No true panopticons were built in Britain during Bentham's lifetime, and very few anywhere in the British Empire.

Many modern prisons built today are built in a "podular" design influenced by the Panopticon design, in intent and basic organization if not in exact form. As compared to traditional "cellblock" designs, in which rectangular buildings contain tiers of cells one atop the other in front of a walkway along which correctional officers patrol, modern prisons are often constructed with triangular or trapezoidal-shaped buildings known as "pods" or "modules". In these designs, cells are laid out in three or fewer tiers arrayed around an elevated central control station which affords a single correctional officer full view of all cells within either a 270° or 180° field of view (180° is usually considered a closer level of supervision). Control of cell doors, CCTV monitors, and communications are all conducted from the control station. The correctional officer, depending on the level of security, may be armed with nonlethal and lethal weapons to cover the pod as well. Increasingly, meals, laundry, commissary items and other goods and services are dispatched directly to the pods or individual cells. These design points, whatever their deliberate or incidental psychological and social effects, serve to maximize the number of prisoners that can be controlled and monitored by one individual, reducing staffing; as well as restricting prisoner movement as tightly as possible.

Panopticon-inspired prisons

Other panoptic structures

The Panopticon has been suggested as an "open" hospital architecture: "Hospitals required knowledge of contacts, contagions, proximity and crowding. The Twin Towers Correctional Facility, also referred to in the media as Twin Towers Jail, is a complex erected in Los Angeles California to house inmates Los Angeles (lɑˈsændʒələs los ˈaŋxeles in Spanish) is the largest City in the state of California and the American West California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Insein Prison (pronounced like "insane" is located in Yangon Division, near Yangon (Rangoon the old capital of Burma. Insein is a township located north of Yangon, in southern Burma. Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar ( pjìdàunzṵ mjàmmà nàinŋàndɔ̀ is the largest country by geographical area in mainland Southeast Asia. A hospital is an institution for Health care providing treatment by specialised staff and equipment and often but not always providing for . . at the same time to divide space and keep it open, assuring a surveillance which is both global and individualising", 1977 interview (preface to French edition of Jeremy Bentham's "Panopticon").

The Worcester State Hospital, constructed in the late 19th century, extensively employed panoptic structures to allow more efficient observation of the inmates. It was considered a model facility at the time.

The only industrial building ever to be built on the Panopticon principle was the Round Mill in Belper, Derbyshire, England. Constructed in 1811 it fell into disuse by the beginning of the twentieth century and was demolished in 1959. [7]

Contemporary social critics often assert that technology has allowed for the deployment of panoptic structures invisibly throughout society. Technology is a broad concept that deals with a Species ' usage and knowledge of Tools and Crafts and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt Surveillance by closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in public spaces is an example of a technology that brings the gaze of a superior into the daily lives of the populace. Surveillance is the monitoring of Behavior. Systems surveillance is the process of monitoring the behavior of people objects or processes within systems for conformity Closed-circuit television ( CCTV) is the use of Video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place limited set of monitors Further, Middlesbrough, a town in the North of England, has put loudspeakers to the CCTV cameras. Middlesbrough ( IPA ( Received pronunciation) is a Town in the Tees Valley sub-region of the North East of England They can transmit the voice of a camera supervisor. [8][9]

In popular culture

Criticism

The growth of panoptic monitoring technologies has provoked backlashes by privacy advocates. However, some observers argue that these technologies don't always favor the hierarchical structure outlined by Orwell, Bentham, and Foucault, but can also enable individuals, through inverse surveillance or sousveillance, to appropriate technological tools for individual or public purposes. Sousveillance (suːˈveɪləns original French) as well as inverse surveillance are terms coined by Steve Mann to describe the recording of an activity Still others predict a balanced state of a universal "participatory panopticon" in which there is an equiveillance, or equilibrium of monitoring and control structures between parties. Equiveillance is the a state of equilibrium or a desire to attain a state of equilibrium between Surveillance and Sousveillance.

References

  1. ^ Lang, Silke Berit. "The Impact of Video Systems on Architecture", dissertion, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 2004.
  2. ^ Bentham, Jeremy. Panopticon (Preface). In Miran Bozovic (ed. ), The Panopticon Writings, London: Verso, 1995, 29-95.
  3. ^ Jeremy Bentham. Panopticon. In Miran Bozovic (ed. ), The Panopticon Writings, London: Verso, 1995, 29-95.
  4. ^ In Miran Bozovic (ed. ), The Panopticon Writings, London: Verso, 1995, 29-95.
  5. ^ 10 Downing Street - Prime Ministers in History
  6. ^ Barton, Ben F. , and Marthalee S. Barton. "Modes of Power in Technical and Professional Visuals. " Journal of Business and Technical Communication 7. 1, 1993, 138-62.
  7. ^ Farmer, Adrian, Belper and Milford, Tempus Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, 2004, 119.
  8. ^ Cameras Help Stop Crime The Hoya, September 22, 2006
  9. ^ 2006, But Has 1984 Finally Arrived? Indymedia UK, 19 September 2006

See also

External links

Events 66 - Emperor Nero creates the Legion I Italica. 1236 - The Lithuanians Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Events 335 - Dalmatius is raised to the rank of Caesar by his uncle Constantine I. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. Discipline and Punish The Birth of the Prison is a book written by the philosopher Michel Foucault. Michel Foucault ( (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984 was a French philosopher, Historian, Intellectual, Critic and Sociologist. Big Brother is a Fictional character in George Orwell 's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Nineteen Eighty-Four (also titled 1984) by George Orwell (the pen name of Eric Arthur Blair) is a 1949 English Novel Big Brother is a Reality television show where in each series a group of people live together in the Big Brother House isolated from the outside world but continuously Reality television is a genre of Television programming which presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations documents actual events and usually features ordinary For the Surveillance system surrounding the City of London, see City of London's "ring of steel" Ring of Steel Governmentality ( "Gouvernementalité" in French is a concept first developed by the French Philosopher Michel Foucault in the later years of Biopower was a term originally coined by French Philosopher Michel Foucault to refer to the practice of modern states and their regulation of their subjects The Information Awareness Office (IAO was established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA the research and development agency of the United States Mass surveillance is the pervasive Surveillance of an entire population or a substantial fraction thereof Omniscience (ɒm'nɪsɪəns (or Omniscient Point-of-View in writing is the capacity to know everything infinitely or at least everything that can be known about a character Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a concept used to describe Political systems where a State regulates nearly every aspect of public and private The Transparent Society (1998 is a non-fiction book by the science-fiction author David Brin in which he forecasts the erosion of Privacy, as it is Glen David Brin, PhD (born October 6, 1950) is an American scientist and award-winning author of Science fiction. Kiln People is a 2002 Science fiction Novel by David Brin. It was published in the UK under the title Kil'n People The Traveler ( The Traveller in the UK is a 2005 Novel by John Twelve Hawks, which impressed some critics and became an international John Twelve Hawks (also known as J12H or JXIIH to his fans is the author of the 2005 Dystopian novel The Traveler and the 2007 novel The Dark Closed-circuit television ( CCTV) is the use of Video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place limited set of monitors Panopticon is the third full-length album by Los Angeles California, USA-based Post-metal band Isis, released on October 19, Isis is a Los Angeles California -based band founded in Boston Massachusetts in 1997 The idea of the Panopticon originated with the English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham as a prison design that would allow an observer to monitor all the prisoners A total institution, also referred to as a voracious institution, as defined by Erving Goffman, is an Institution where all parts of life of individuals

Dictionary

panopticon

-noun

  1. A type of prison designed by philosopher Jeremy Bentham wherein all the cells are visible from the center of the building. It also means the feeling that someone is watching you, even though you know they're not.
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