Foucault suggests that the most effective prison would be one of a Panopticon. He proposes its design would lead the prisoners to keep themselves in line. That after they had been caught red handed a few times, the prisoners would assume that they will be caught every time
and thus would stay out of trouble on their own. There would not even be a need to monitor all the prisoners at any given time as long as they believed they were being constantly watched. Since his proposal, only three panopticon prisons have been constructed. It seems that in practice, although the prisoners stayed in line, they enjoyed their stay a little too much compared to normal conceptions of prison stays. They found they had more freedom than in a normal prison. My question is whether this is a bonus of a panopticon prison or a defect. There are innocent people in prison, but do we want the guilty ones to look forward to their stay at all?
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Panopticon
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2 comments:
Well, having one's freedom of movement, privacy and self-determination restricted and closely monitored is an extreme and jarring change in itself from what the inmates experienced outside of prison. I don't think anyone who has never experienced that restriction and loss of privacy can fathom its psychological effect. Every moment of every day is planned out by someone else, and any attempted deviation is quickly dealt with, by physical force if necessary. All the while, what should be the most private human activities are laid open to the eyes of others.
In the case of the panopticons already in use, the inmates may report that they find their stay a bit more tolerable than in other prisons, but the main purpose of the panopticon is efficiency. It should not be surprising that inmates would prefer an efficient system to a chaotic one. Predictability is comforting, and less chaos means less violence, both between inmates and between inmates and staff.
Your question seems to be whether inmates deserve a system that makes their stay more tolerable. My response is threefold. First, the purpose of prisons is the removal of the individual from society, not to cause as much distress and damage to the individual as possible. Second, as I mentioned above, the loss of freedom and privacy is already a severe punishment. The inmates don't enjoy their stays in panopticons, they just find their stay less distressing due to the relative efficiency as compared with other prisons. Thirdly, as to the question of what inmates deserve, the question is way too broad and fraught with problems of perceived moral superiority. We who stand outside the penal system must be careful not to allow any feelings of moral superiority to lead us to view inmates as inferiors who deserve less than we do. In their place, we would hope to be given as much consideration as the law prescribes, and so we should hope for the same for those currently incarcerated. The terrible an sometimes inhuman conditions of many prisons are not justly deserved, neither are they required by law.
Interesting thoughts.
One point which I can't but help chime in on. The claim that "the purpose of prisons is the removal of the individual from society" I want to mention that this is not Foucault's view.
Foucault's view is that the purpose of prisons (etc.) is to instill discipline. Which is to say that their purpose is to train bodies and souls to instill discipline on themselves.
This markedly contrasts, Foucault thinks, from the old model of exclusion or banishment. We no longer want to banish people (even life sentences are often paroled); we want to train them to discipline themselves.
This may not be such a bad thing. But it presents many dangers which Foucault is eager to point out.
Among them is the way that prisons are used as a base from which we organize an enormous variety of disciplinary techniques and institutions. The prison slowly ripples outward throughout society. Soon the disciplinary regime of punishment becomes quotidian and everyday. We are all good at disciplining ourselves.
This may not be 'bad' but it certainly is 'dangerous'. Foucault thinks we have all learned how to excel at forms of self-control which were originally developed in the context of punishment. In other words, we are all so good at punishing ourselves.
That's a provocative claim, to say the least.
Thanks for the excellent question and compelling reply.
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