Discipline And Punish The Birth Of The Prison - 1105 Words

French scholar Michel Foucault, in chapter 20 of Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, titled ‘Panopticism’ discusses his position on the panopticon ability to be a form of surveillance. The following piece will summarize chapter 20 of Foucault’s work, and discuss the creation of panopticism as a figure of societies transition into disciplinary forms of surveillance. Additionally, providing contemporary examples with the creation of Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV), and employ monitoring programs. Foucault’s work is built off the design of Jeremy Bentham’s ‘panopticon’, referring to it as the perfect or architectural figure of power in modern society (1979: 4). This design, encompasses a tower at the center from which is†¦show more content†¦Whether it be, in the penal system, where inmates are plotting an escape, creation of future crime plans, or in education, where schoolchildren are monitored for cheating, loudness, excessive chatter, or just day dreaming (Fludernik 2017: 6). Though, no one may be monitoring the subject at the time of a possible deviance, the possibility of it both eliminates the thought of doing so and maximizes the efficiency of the institution (Wood 2017). Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV), uses video camera technology in predominately urban areas to transmit and watch over specified locations to a monitoring station (Liu and Chen 2011: 1075). The principles of Bentham’s work the ‘panopticon’, are visible in the design and operation of CCTV, with the main premise being, to discourage people from wrong doing through the threat of constant surveillance. The cameras become internalized, as individuals become frightened of the possibility that someone at that moment is watching them, thus they self police themselves. Foucault’s, argument that disciplinary power can be extended to every aspect of society, and not only the penal system is evident through the use of CCTV. Similarly, to the ‘panopticon’, whose primary intended usage was installment as a prison, CCTV’s was to fight crime, being initially installed in September of 1968 in Olean, New York (Zhang 2015:7). Receiving constant support fr om policy creators andShow MoreRelatedDiscipline And Punish : The Birth Of The Prison1345 Words   |  6 PagesMichel Foucault- Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison Michel Foucault is a very famous French intellectual who practiced the knowledge of sociology. Foucault analyzed how knowledge related to social structures, in particular the concept of punishment within the penal system. His theory through, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, is a detailed outline of the disciplinary society; in which organizes populations, their relations to power formations, and the corresponding conceptionsRead MoreEssay on Foucaults Discipline and Punish: The birth of the prison2301 Words   |  10 Pagesdisciplinary society can be used to understand the body in the society, I would like to begin this essay by returning to Foucault’s book – Discipline and Punish: The birth of the prison. This book deals with the disciplinary institutions and practices that emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While discipline and punish is concerned with the birth of the prison in modern Europe, it has far wider implications for the everyday lives of ordinary citizens. Notions such as micro-power, disciplinaryRead MoreMichael Foucault s Discipline And Punish : The Birth Of The Prison Essay2061 Words   |  9 PagesMichael Foucault’s chapter Panopticism from his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, analyzes how power has advanced through the use of surveillance. The chapter explores how surveillance first evolved when the King was the overall dictator and enforcer. The King held all the power; he decided which rules must be followed and the consequences or punishments that were applicable when these rules were disregarded. The idea of observation and surveillance first evolved when the plagueRead MoreFoucault and Punishment Essay1172 Words   |  5 Pageschanged to a more psychological approach compared to a public embarrassment/torture approach. The following paragraphs will discuss the development of prisons and what in fact gives people gives people the right to punish; as well as the overall meaning and function of prisons. The work by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison will help with the arguments at hand. The first thing to be looked at is the change from a medieval concept of punishment to a more modern conceptRead MoreBiographical Paper Of Michel Foucault1272 Words   |  6 Pagesd’information sur les prisons He wrote â€Å" Introduction† to Dream and Existence by Ludwig Binswanger who was a Heideggerian psychiatrist and wrote â€Å"Malasle mentale et personalite† which was a short book on mental illness. He supported structuralist and poststructuralist movements and also protested on behalf of homosexuals. Some of the things he studied and wrote books for was Discipline and Punishment, The History of Sexuality, Madness and Civilization, The Order of Things, The Archaeology, The Birth of The ClinicRead MoreSystem And Oppression Of The Panopticon1631 Words   |  7 Pageslugubrious atmosphere of a prison or a mad-house’ where the clowns demonstrate a ‘willed and terrible of a prison of being’ (pt. III, CH. 4, P. 116), the text gives a chanc e to two of the most influential studies of Foucault such as Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975) and Madness and Civilisation: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (1965). The shape of panopticon comes from the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s (1748-1832) design for a prison. Carter used the same structureRead MoreThe Digital Panopticon: Foucault and Internet Privacy Essay example1314 Words   |  6 PagesThe Digital Panopticon: Foucault and Internet Privacy In 1977, Michel Foucault wrote in Discipline and Punish about the disciplinary mechanisms of constant and invisible surveillance in part through an analysis of Jeremy Benthams panopticon. The panopticon was envisioned as a circular prison, in the centre of which resided a guard tower. Along the circumference, individuals resided in cells that were visible to the guard tower but invisible to each other. Importantly, this guard tower was backlitRead MoreThe Weight Of Social Awareness1025 Words   |  5 Pagespeople who commit serious crimes. Their focus has always been to punish these individuals beyond the deprivation of their freedom and not much effort is put into treating these individuals and preparing them to get back into their community. Punishment is viewed as a way of discouraging other members of the community from committing crimes and reducing recidivism. Society often refers to prisoners as separate from their communities. Prisons serve as a physical remainder of this distinction and to reinforceRead MoreFoucault’s Panopticism and Its Application Within Modern Education Systems1697 Words   |  7 PagesBentham’s Panopticon and developed by Michel Foucault describes a disciplinary mechanism used in various aspects of society. Foucault’s Discipline and Punish discusses the development of discipline in Western society, looks in particularly at Bentha m’s Panopticon and how it is a working example of how the theory is employed effectively. Foucault explains, in Discipline and Punish that ‘this book is intended as a correlative history of the modern soul and of a new power to judge’ (Foucault, 1977) and opensRead MoreMichael Foucaults Panopticism879 Words   |  4 PagesSociety: Comparison to the Panopticon According to Wikepedia, a panopticon is a type of prison where the observer is able to watch the prisoners without the prisoner knowing when they are being watched. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners thereby conveying what one architect has called the sentiment of an invisible omnisciece. The panopticon was invented by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1785. Bentham himself described the Panopticon