Panopticon

The panopticon is a type of institutional building and a system of control designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept of the design is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be observed by a single security guard, without the inmates being able to tell whether they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single guard to observe all the inmates' cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that they are motivated to act as though they are being watched at all times. Thus, the inmates are effectively compelled to regulate their own behaviour. The architecture consists of a rotunda with an inspection house at its centre. From the centre the manager or staff of the institution are able to watch the inmates. Bentham conceived the basic plan as being equally applicable to hospitals, schools, sanatoriums, and asylums, but he devoted most of his efforts to developing a design for a panopticon prison. It is his prison, that is now most widely meant by the term 'panopticon'. The word panopticon derives from the Greek word for 'all seeing' - panoptes. In 1785 Jeremy Bentham, an English social reformer and founder of utilitarianism, travelled to Krichev in White Russia (modern Belarus) to visit his brother, Samuel who accompanied Prince Potemkin. Bentham arrived in Krichev in early 1786 and stayed for almost two years. While residing with his brother in Krichev, Bentham sketched out the concept of the panopticon in letters. Bentham applied his brother's ideas on the constant observation of workers to prisons. Back in England Bentham with the assistance of his brother continued to develop his theory on the panopticon. Prior to fleshing out his ideas of a panopticon prison, Bentham had drafted a complete penal code and explored fundamental legal theory. While in his lifetime Bentham was a prolific letter writer, he published little and remained obscure to the public until his death. Bentham thought that the chief mechanism that would bring the manager of the panopticon prison in line with the duty to be humane would be publicity. Bentham tried to put his duty and interest junction principle into practice by encouraging a public debate on prisons. Bentham's inspection principle applied not only to the inmates of the panopticon prison, but also the manager. The unaccountable gaoler, was to be observed by the general public and public officials. The apparently constant surveillance of the prison inmates by the panopticon manager and the occasional observation of the manager by the general public was to solve the age old philosophic question: 'who guards the guards?'. Bentham continued to develop the panopticon concept, as the industrialisation advanced in England and an increasing number of workers were required to work in ever larger factories. Bentham commissioned drawings from an architect, Willey Reveley. The 1843 plans for the panopticon prison were described by Bentham as a 'new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in quantity hitherto without example'. Bentham reasoned that if the prisoners of the panopticon prison could be seen but never knew when they were watched, the prisoners would need to stick to the rules. Bentham also thought, that Reveley's prison design could be used for factories, asylums, hospitals and schools. Bentham remained bitter throughout his later life about the rejection of the panopticon scheme, convinced that it had been thwarted by the King and an aristocratic elite. It was largely because of his sense of injustice and frustration that he developed his ideas of sinister interest — that is, of the vested interests of the powerful conspiring against a wider public interest—which underpinned many of his broader arguments for reform. Bentham's proposal for a panopticon prison met with great interest among British government officials not only because it incorporated the pleasure-pain principle developed by the materialist philosopher Thomas Hobbes, but also because Bentham joined the emerging discussion on political economy. Bentham argued that the confinement of the prison, 'which is his punishment, preventing carrying the work to another market.' Key to Bentham's proposals and efforts to build a panopticon prison in Millbank at his own expense, was the 'means of extracting labour' out of prisoners in the panopticon. In his 1791 writing Panopticon, or The Inspection House, Bentham reasoned that those working fixed hours needed to be overseen. Also, in 1791 Jean Philippe Garran de Coulon presented a paper on Bentham's panopticon prison concepts to the National Legislative Assembly in revolutionary France. In 1812 persistent problems with Newgate Prison and other London prisons prompted the British government to fund the construction of a prison in Millbank at the taxpayers' expense. Based on Bentham's panopticon plans, the National Penitentiary opened in 1821. Millbank Prison, as it became known, was controversial and failed in extracting valuable labour out of prisoners. Millbank Prison was even blamed for causing mental illness among prisoners. Nevertheless, the British government placed an increasing emphasis on prisoners doing meaningful work, instead of engaging in humiliating and meaningless kill-times. Bentham lived to see Millbank Prison built and did not support the approach taken by the British government. His writings had virtually no immediate effect on the architecture of tax-payer funded prisons that were to be built. Between 1818 and 1821 a small prison for women was built in Lancaster. It has been observed that the architect Joseph Gandy modelled it very closely on Bentham's panopticon prison plans. The K-wing near Lancaster Castle prison is a semi-rotunda with a central tower for the supervisor and five storeys with nine cells on each floor.