History of the Prison

Check out this video.  It is a brief history of prisons, but also focuses on the use of technology in and the architecture of prisons.  It makes the indirect but clear point that surveiller goes hand in hand with technology.  There’s a nice spot right at the beginning where the Commissioner of the NYC Dept. of Corrections talks about how military technology is being employed in prisons.  They also trace the concept of the cell as a model for imprisonment from the monastic cell, adding a religious, meditative element to the Foucaultian thesis that systems of discipline in different types of institutions cross-pollinated.

–seth

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