An architectural design for a prison, know as the Panopticon, is made up of circular cells with a tower in the middle. A guard placed at the top of the tower can see into every cell in order to keep an eye on the prisoners. The windows in the tower are tinted, so no one can see the guards. This notion was introduced by English Philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1791.
In 1979, Michel Foucault wrote a book, Discipline and Punish, in which he discusses this type of architecture and how it has become a cultural norm for us today. He claims that “physical intimidation is hardly even relevant in an information society where people need to regulate their own behavior to escape the constant threat of detection”
(http://besser.tsoa.nyu.edu/impact/f96/projects/dengberg/ ). Anywhere we go today, we are being watched by cameras which ensure that people will regulate their behavior because they think they are being watched. One good example is stealing form a store: a person will not be tempted to shoplift if they see a camera that they believe is watching them, for fear of facing the consequences.
But are we really being watched? Just as the guards had tinted windows in their tower so that no one could tell if they were really being watched or not, many cameras that we think are watching us today are actually fake. There doesn’t need to be anyone watching over us; as long as we think we are being watched we will resist behaving in immoral or illegal ways.
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