Traditional prisons separated keepers from prisoners, defeating the purpose of custody
Evidence
In so many edifices, as, from the time of the conquest to the present, have been built for the express purpose of safe custody, does it sound natural that, instead of placing the prisoners under the inspection of their keepers, the one class should have been lodged at one end, perhaps, of a vast building, and the other at another end? – as if the object of the establishment were, that those who wished to escape might carry on their schemes in concert, and at leisure. — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 277
Categorization
- DEFINE: Establishes the ‘inspection principle’ as the conceptual core Bentham sets against the inherited practice of segregating keepers from prisoners.