Panopticism

The idea of isolating a certain group from the others certainly isn’t a new idea and has been around

since the beginning of time. It’s something that has always been and will always be for purely selfish reasons

of security. Thus, it’s not a question of whether or not certain people should be isolated but rather how it

should be done. English philosopher Jeremy Bentham created a simple institution known as the Panopticon,

which bases itself on a person’s subconscious desire to conform to society. Today, this form of isolation is ideal

for criminals since they’re broken down mentally instead of physically, prisoners are given a generous chance

to redeem themselves to become a part of society again, and power isn’t centralized in the hands of the warden

or prison guards.

In “Panopticism” of French philosopher Michel Foucault’s book Discipline and Punishment, the

panopticon that Bentham designed is built as “an annular building; at the center, a tower; this tower is pierced

with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the peripheric building is divided into cells, each

of which extends the whole width of the building; they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to

the window of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows light to cross the cell from one end to the other.”

Such a structure allows individuals to be seen and restricts their ability to communicate with the security, the

warden, or other prisoners. In this case, crowds are nonexistent and each person is confined to their cell where

they can be viewed by the watcher. As Foucault explains, the Panopticon works “to induce in the inmate a state

of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.” The brilliance of this

prison is that the Panopticon forces blindness onto the prisoner where he or she is never sure if someone’s

watching or not, inducing a harmless form of paranoia, keeping people in place.

When a person is accused of a crime, society finds upon itself the responsibility of punishing him or

her. The question of morality, however, is finding the perfect punishment in compensation of the crime that

was committed. With the Panopticon, rather than breaking them down physically by using tortures like the

thumbscrew or whips, prisoners can be broken down mentally, which allows the reconstruction of their

mentality. This entire theory is effective due to the natural desire that people in general have to conform to

society’s pressures. After all, it is ingrained in the natural being of humans to know that in order to survive,

everyone needs a place in society whether it is as the businessman or as a joker. The fear of complete
abandonment from this institution allows the system to work properly.

Next, the Panopticon is essential to society in it’s ability to give a prisoner the chance of redeeming

himself or herself to become a crucial part of society again. Instead of seeing revenge on the prisoners, this

system allows them to be reformed through a force of habit. As prisoners get used to the idea that they’re being

watched at all times with or without their knowledge, they adjust their behavior to meet society’s standards and

norms. Thus, with a strong sense of paranoia, once the prisoner comes out of the Panopticon, he or she will

rethink any decisions of breaking the rules. Once the person goes through that phase of the Panopticon

imprisonment, he or she is set for a regular life in the real world with human interaction.

In addition, with the Panopticon, power isn’t centralized in the hands of the warden or prison guards.

The mere concept of being spied on causes others to display normal behavior, one that they want to portray to

society. The real punishment that the prisoner goes through is one within his or her own mind where due to

paranoia, the person shapes up to meet the rules of society in what is right rather than wrong. In this case, no

one has power over another and even the amount of guards can be lessened; the prisoner is unable to tell the

difference as to who is watching or how many people are watching. Power isn’t given to people but is within

the architecture of the Panopticon. There will be no more vicious beatings of prisoners and no more

degradation of them. In the end, they’re like everyone else, another everyday person in today’s world.

Panopticism creates self-discipline forced into play through one’s own mentality of paranoia and fear,

allowing criminals to be broken down mentally instead of physically, to redeem themselves as a part of society

again, and to allow power to not be centralized in the hands of the warden or prison guards. It’s not only an

effective system but it’s also efficient in the way that those separated from society may still have the ability to

blend black in after undergoing this type of imprisonment. As a result, the concept of a Panopticon would

certainly be better than the status quo where punishment is used and people are locked away behind bars

without given a chance to prove that they’re reformed. Any cruel and unusual punishments that may occur are

abolished and finally, for those who have made a mistake or two, redemption is finally possible.