9.2 Surveillance

• Surveillance definition

  the monitoring of public behaviour for the purposes of population or crime control

  involves observing people's behaviour to gather data about it and often using that data to regulate, manage or correct the behaviour
• What did ____ say about the birth of the prison?

  (Foucault) there are two contrasting forms of punishment

  sovereign power - typical of the period before the 19th century when monarchs had complete control over the country, disfiguring and visible punishments were inflicted on the body as a brutal and emotional spectacle

  disciplinary power - dominant from the 19th century, a system of discipline that seeks to govern the mind as well as the body through surveillance

  foucault argues sovereign power disappeared from the uk purely because disciplinary power was more effective for controlling people
• What did ___ say about why sovereign power disappeared from the UK?

  (Foucault) sovereign power disappeared from the uk purely because disciplinary power was more effective for controlling people
• What did ____ say about disciplinary power through prison design?

  (Foucault) prisons were designed so inmates were visible to guards from a watchtower but the guards weren't visible from the cells

  the prisoners don't know if they are being watched but they know they might be, so they have the behave as if they are being watched at all times

  the surveillance becomes self-surveillance and discipline into self-discipline so control takes place inside the prisoner
• What did ____ say about the dispersal of discipline?

  (Foucault) prison is one of many institutions that increasingly began to subject individuals to disciplinary power from the 19th century to induce conformity eg. psych wards and schools

  non-prison based social control practices like community service orders form a carceral archepalego - prison islands where professionals such as teachers, social workers and psychiatrists all exert surveillance over society

  disciplinary power has penetrated every social institution and individual so the panoptican is the way all of society functions
• What are criticisms of Foucault?

  the shift from sovereign to disciplinary power is less clear than foucault suggests

  wrongly assumes the expressive and emotional aspects of prison have disappeared

  overestimates the power of surveillance to change behaviour
• What did ___ say to criticise Foucault?

  Goffman - inmates are able to resist controls
• Criticism of Foucault's CCTV

  Norris- reviewed worldwide studies and found cctv only reduced crime in car parks and often led to displacement
• Synoptic Surveillance- Thompson


  powerful groups fear surveillance from the media as it may uncover damaging information
• Surveillant Assemblages

  haggerty + ericson - surveillance technologies now involve the manipulation of virtual objects and digital data

  there is now an important trend of combining technologies eg. cctv footage can be analysed using facial recognition software

  these combinations are surveillant assemblages and we are moving towards a world in which a 'data double' of the individual can be created
• Risk Management

  feeley + simon - the aim of surveillance is purely to predict and prevent future offending without any focus on rehabilitation

  e.g. new drivers getting higher insurance
• What is a critcism of feeley & simon?

  there is a risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy as surveillance conclusions lead to a tougher stance on crimes committed by those groups, so more people from that group appear in statistics
• Labelling & Surveillance

  norris + armstrong - there is a disproportionate targeting of young black males by surveillance operators purely because of their social group

  there are judgements made based on suspects' typifications which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where these social groups are arrested more often - the results of surveillance are socially constructed