Panopticism is a Metaphor for Power
Michel Foucault imagined any subject open to be 'problematized'. To begin Foucault looked at the built in assumptions of a topic and traced back the roots of them. Foucault championed critiques of discipline and punishment in part by questioning the roots of the penal system as well as other systems of power. His work reveals not necessarily answers to the problems of incarceration as one might hope. His work instead reveals the roots of the penal system, the refinement of surveillance technologies and the guaranteed outcome of recidivism. The links below will help you quickly search through some of these themes with a Foucaultdian perspective in mind.
In Michel Foucault’s book, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, critiques of the penal system are framed through the metaphor of ‘panopticism’. An idea adapted from the late 18th century English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham. Whose invention of the ‘panoptic’ multipurpose institutional provides the roots of incarceral architectural design. The metaphor of panopticism is in part based on what Foucault says is an, “architectural apparatus . . . a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers”. Foucaults ideas about power situations highlight the condition of inmates who are transformed into bearers of infinite surviellence in a system that aims for permanent institutionalization.