Editing Panopticon (section)

== Prison design ==
{{quote |The Building circular – an iron cage, glazed – a glass lantern about the size of Ranelagh – The Prisoners in their Cells, occupying the Circumference – The Officers, the Centre. By Blinds, and other contrivances, the Inspectors concealed from the observation of the Prisoners: hence the sentiment of a sort of invisible omnipresence. – The whole circuit reviewable with little, or, if necessary, without any, change of place.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Pandaemonium 1660–1886: The Coming of the Machine as Seen by Contemporary Observers |author=Humphrey Jennings| publisher=Icon Books| year=2012| isbn=9781848315860}}</ref> |Jeremy Bentham (1791). ''Panopticon, or The Inspection House''}}

[[File:Millbank Prison Plan.jpg|thumb|right|The plan of [[Millbank Prison]] has six pentagons with a tower at the centre arranged around a chapel.]]
[[File:Eastern State Penitentiary Annotated Floor Plan.jpg|thumb|Annotated floor plan of Eastern State Penitentiary in 1836]]
[[File:J F A McNair, architectural drawing of a proposed prison at Outram, Singapore (1880s).jpg|thumb|An 1880s architectural drawing by [[John Frederick Adolphus McNair]] depicts a [[Outram Prison|proposed prison]] at [[Outram, Singapore]], that was never built.]]
[[File:Presidio Modelo.JPG|thumb|The disused [[Presidio Modelo]] in Cuba is a museum as of 2005.]]
[[File:Presidio-modelo2.JPG|thumb|Inside one of the buildings of the Presidio Modelo]]
Bentham's proposal for a panopticon prison met with great interest among British government officials not only because it incorporated the [[Pleasure principle (psychology)|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 "is his punishment, preventing [the prisoner from] 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.<ref name="Kelly 2017">{{cite book |title=Newgate Narratives |author= Gary Kelly|year=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781351221405 }}</ref> In his 1791 writing ''Panopticon, or The Inspection House'', Bentham reasoned that those working fixed hours needed to be overseen.<ref>{{cite book | author = Gillian Darley |title=Factory | url = https://archive.org/details/factoryobjekt00darl | url-access = limited |year=2003 |publisher= Reaktion Books |isbn= 9781861891556 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/factoryobjekt00darl/page/n54 53]}}</ref> Also, in 1791, Jean Philippe Garran de Coulon presented a paper on Bentham's panopticon prison concepts to the [[National Legislative Assembly (France)|National Legislative Assembly]] in revolutionary France.<ref>{{cite book | author = Dan Edelstein |title = The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution |year=2010 |publisher= University of Chicago Press |isbn= 9780226184395 }}</ref>

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 [[Millbank Prison|National Penitentiary]] opened in 1821. Millbank Prison, as it became known, was controversial, even blamed for causing mental illness among prisoners{{Citation needed|date=July 2022}}. Nevertheless, the British government placed an increasing emphasis on prisoners doing meaningful work, instead of engaging in humiliating and meaningless kill-times.<ref name="Kelly 2017"/> 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 taxpayer-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|Lancaster Castle prison]] is a semi-rotunda with a central tower for the supervisor and five storeys with nine cells on each floor.<ref name="Simon 2016 p43">{{cite book |title=Architecture and Justice: Judicial Meanings in the Public Realm |author=Jonathan Simon|year=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317179382 |page=43 }}</ref>

It was the [[Pentonville prison]], which was built in London after Bentham's death in 1832, that was to serve as a model for a further 54 prisons in [[Victorian Britain]]. Built between 1840 and 1842 according to the plans of [[Joshua Jebb]], Pentonville prison had a central hall with radial prison wings.<ref name="Simon 2016 p43"/> It has been claimed that Bentham's panopticon influenced the radial design of 19th-century prisons built on the principles of the "[[separate system]]", including [[Eastern State Penitentiary]] in [[Philadelphia]], which opened in 1829.<ref>{{cite book |last= Andrzejewski |first= Anna Vemer |title= Building Power: Architecture and Surveillance in Victorian America |place= Knoxville |publisher= University of Tennessee Press |year= 2008 |isbn= 978-1-57233631-5 |pages= 18–19}}</ref> But the Pennsylvania–Pentonville architectural model with its radial prison wings was not designed to facilitate constant surveillance of individual prisoners. Guards had to walk from the hall along the radial corridors and could only observe prisoners in their cells by looking through the cell door's [[peephole]].<ref>{{cite book | author= Jacqueline Z. Wilson |title= Prison: Cultural Memory and Dark Tourism |publisher= Peter Lang |year= 2008 |isbn= 9781433102790 |pages= 37}}</ref>

In 1925, [[Cuba]]'s president [[Gerardo Machado]] set out to build a modern prison, based on Bentham's concepts and employing the latest scientific theories on [[Rehabilitation (penology)|rehabilitation]]. A Cuban envoy tasked with studying [[US prisons]] in advance of the construction of [[Presidio Modelo]] had been greatly impressed with [[Stateville Correctional Center]] in [[Illinois]] and the cells in the new circular prison were too faced inwards towards a central guard tower. Because of the shuttered guard tower, the guards could see the prisoners, but the prisoners could not see the guards. Cuban officials theorised that the prisoners would "behave" if there was a probable chance that they were under [[surveillance]], and once prisoners behaved, they could be rehabilitated.

Between 1926 and 1931, the Cuban government built four such panopticons connected with tunnels to a massive central structure that served as a community centre. Each panopticon had five floors with 93 cells. In keeping with Bentham's ideas, none of the cells had doors. Prisoners were free to roam the prison and participate in workshops to learn a trade or become literate, with the hope being that they would become productive [[citizen]]s. However, by the time [[Fidel Castro]] was imprisoned at [[Presidio Modelo]], the four circulars were packed with 6,000 men, every floor was filled with trash, there was no running water, food rations were meagre, and the government supplied only the bare necessities of life.<ref>{{cite book |title=Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda |author1-first= Robert |author1-last=Wallace |author2-first=H. Keith |author2-last=Melton |author3-first=Henry R. |author3-last=Schlesinger|year=2008 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=9781440635304 |pages= 258–259 }}</ref>

In the Netherlands, historic panopticon prisons include [[Koepelgevangenis (Breda)|Breda]], [[Koepelgevangenis (Arnhem)|Arnhem]], and [[Koepelgevangenis (Haarlem)|Haarlem penitentiary]]. However, these circular prisons with approximately 400 cells fail as panopticons because the inward-facing cell windows were so small that guards could not see the entire cell. The lack of surveillance that was actually possible in prisons with small cells and doors discounts many circular prison designs from being a panopticon as it had been envisaged by Bentham.<ref name="Horne 2014 pp28-29">{{cite book |title=The Inspection House: An Impertinent Field Guide to Modern Surveillance |author1-first=Tim |author1-last=Maly |author2-first=Emily |author2-last=Horne |year=2014 |publisher=Coach House Books |isbn=9781552453018 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/inspectionhousei0000horn/page/28 28–29] |url=https://archive.org/details/inspectionhousei0000horn/page/28 }}</ref> In 2006, one of the first digital panopticon prisons opened in the Dutch province of Flevoland. Every prisoner in the Lelystad Prison wears an [[Electronic tagging|electronic tag]] and by design, only six guards are needed for 150 prisoners instead of the usual 15 or more.<ref name="Horne 2014 pp28-29"/>