Punishment In John Foucault's Panopticon

Punishment Foucault describes the shift in punishment as “to be enclosed, to be deprived of light and to and to hide.” The Panopticon is meant to keep the prisoner from causing more crime, by letting them think that they will always be watched by the person in the tower found in the center. The cells without the actual bars act like its own personal stage. Foucault mentions that the prisoner is always alone, never communicated with, and always being watched. The side walls are what keeps them isolated without being crowded with too many people. With them believing that they will always be watched they will no longer plot an escape or plan a new crime. The new form of punishment is meant to be better than the previous one. Panopticon applies …show more content…
The next concept Foucault describes is panopticon, which is the architecture of the building that the discipline and power take place. Panopticon is the physical make up of how Bentham’s composition would work. The last concept that he describes is governmentality. Governmentality is the use of power and discipline in a way that makes it more effective. The discipline will be able to spread across the society so that all the power will not actually have to be done by force. With the power being there, but not actually visible governmentality exists without physically …show more content…
People are continuously kept separated and watched over all the time. The panopticon works in all aspects of their lives work, school, and if they happen to be criminal in their punishment as well. If we really were to make society work like this then socialization would essentially be taken out of our lives. In applying power as only a mental ability, it would only take one person to see if this was true. This would make society not trust the government. Humans need trust in their government and the ability to socialize with the each other is a key part of keeping our mentality normal. The ones that are being watched can also be watched by society as the observatory area is open to everyone that is not in the cells. This allows like I mentioned earlier for labels to be given in all aspects of society. Labeling is a way to dehumanize and connects most often to deviance. If we really were to run a society like Panopticon then we would be running our lives like a continuous