PANOPTICON, OR, THE INSPECTION HOUSE

"A building circular... The prisoners in their cells, occupying the circumference—The officers in the centre. By blinds and other contrivances, the Inspectors concealed... from the observation of the prisoners: hence the sentiment of a sort of omnipresence—The whole circuit reviewable with little, or... without any, change of place. One station in the inspection part affording the most perfect view of every cell." Jeremy Bentham Proposal for a New and Less Expensive mode of Employing and Reforming Convicts (London, 1798)