pondering the possibilities of a panopticon prison

Foucault has been faulted for being sloppy with his history. But ideas, paradigms, and groundbreaking ways of looking at the world, have been far more important contributions from him. So I won’t poke at his lack of definitions for “antiquity” and “classical times.” Instead, I wonder: if our society is a panoptic one, why haven’t we installed the panoptic prison?

It may seem quite cruel, but prisons now are certainly not places of comfort. Our prisons now are places where crazy things happen when guards turn their backs. And the personal relationship allowed between inmates and guards can cause problems—for instance in the case of Richard McNair, the con artist who’s escaped from prison three times in the last 20 years and has been able to charm guards and police alike once he’s in contact with them.

Perhaps the problem here is the complete dissociation between the seer and the seen, as Foucault describes. If we set inmates out as perpetually watched, they may go crazy. Does the panopticon prison allow for rehabilitation? Do prisons need to rehabilitate, or simply sequester deviants into a safe place in society? Is there a human need to be able to watch others? To have some degree of privacy? The latter is almost certainly removed from our current penal system anyway, and while we’re at it, the military, too.