PL Chapter 3

The chapter entitled Modernity: Spectatorship, Power, and Knowledge was extremely interesting to me because it expanded on concepts I have learned in my sociology and post-modern courses. Something new that I learned was the concept of the panopticon. It is written on page 107:

"This concept of seeing without being seen and of imagining oneself being seen when in fact no human subject is looking is what Bentham had in mind when he described this as a plan for gaining power of mind over mind. Because prisoners would come to imagine themselves being seen by the guard, there was no need for an actual guard to be present to keep the community of prisoners under control."

Later, it is written that, "There were 4.2 million...cameras in Great Britan in 2006, approximately one for every fourteen people" (107). These concepts really got me thinking about the ways that we act in accordance to those that we perceive are watching. I remembered seeing at the gas station a few days ago, "Smile! You're on camera!" with a warning that stealing fuel is punishable by up to one year in prison. Surely, this persuades me against stealing, as I'm sure it does to everyone, even if there is no camera in actuality.

Additionally, when I used to work for the pharmacy/drug section of a grocery store, we had a problem with people stealing razor blades. The managers imposed a system with locked windows, but they weren't actually locked--but once the door was lifted up, an slow alarm would sound. If the door was open too long, the alarm would get louder and faster, and as employees, we were supposed to go and assess the situation to see if anybody was stealing. This, too, is like a surveillance camera, but it is a different iteration. Over time, the employees ignored the alarm, but customers still felt as though their actions were closely monitored, and the theft diminished.

It is unsettling to imagine the amounts of security cameras that are present in our every day lives. Most stores have them, and they are a great safety and security measure--but this makes me think of all the movies that poke fun at the security guards in the camera room that sit with their legs propped up on the counter eating donuts. Is their attention to detail unnecessary because the mere thought of a camera watching people monitors these people's actions more direct discipline? At my store, we had several cameras, but nobody ever monitored them unless an issue had already occurred. Nobody was monitoring the cameras in real time.

According to Foucault's panopticon theory, the absense of monitoring is the whole point. Actually, according to Foucault, not only is the monitoring unnecessary--but so are the actual cameras. As people, the thought that we are being watched is enough to keep our actions in check. Being watched is unsettling for most people, and getting caught is even worse. However, this theory works better in real life scenarios (outside of prisons), in my opinion. It seems to be, though this is strictly opinion, that criminals have less of a desire to "play by the rules" and stay out of trouble than non-criminals.