Introduction and Definition
The panopticon is an architectural design for a prison proposed by the social theorist Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) in 1791 and was popularized by the poststructural philosopher Michel Foucault (1926–1984), who employed it as a metaphor for social control in a variety of modern institutions and practices. Bentham (1995) used the Greek word Panopticon – meaning “all seeing” – to capture the distinctive feature of the prison design, the possibility of maintaining control and providing reform by creating a situation wherein a prisoner perceives him or herself to be under constant surveillance, inescapably visible to the prison guard.
A wheel-like model, the prison is characterized by cells that point inward around the entire circumference of a circle, with a guard tower placed in the direct center. Through careful placement of windows and lighting pointing toward the cells, along with angled slits in the guard tower, prisoners are unable to discern the activity...
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References
Bentham, J. (1995). The panopticon writings. London: Verso.
Dandeker, C. (1990). Surveillance, power and modernity: Bureaucracy and discipline from 1700 to the present day. Cambridge, MA: Polity Press.
Deleuze, G. (1988). Foucault. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (trans: Sheridan, A.). London: Penguin.
Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. In H. L. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Brighton, MA: The Harvester Press.
Foucault, M. (1997). The essential works of Michel Foucault, 1954–1984. In P. Rabinow (Ed.) Ethics (Vol. 1, trans: Hurley, R). New York, NY: New Press.
Foucault, M. (2007). Security, territory, population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977–1978 (Ed.: Sennellart, M., trans: Burchell, G.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lyon, D. (1994). The electronic eye: The rise of surveillance society. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Lyon, D. (Ed.). (2006). Theorising surveillance: The panopticon and beyond. Uffculme, Devon, UK: Willan Publishing.
Online Resources
Online articles related to Foucault and the panopticon. (http://foucault.info/documents/disciplineAndPunish/foucault.disciplineAndPunish.panOpticism.html)
Stanford encyclopedia entry on Foucault’s history of the prison. (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/foucault/#3.3)
Foucault and the Panopticon revisited: Contemporary online site devoted to topic. (http://www.surveillance-and-society.org/journalv1i3.htm)
Foucault’s lecture on YouTube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk9ulS76PW8)
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Goodman, D. (2014). Panopticon. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_464
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