# Criminal Justice type question - making prisoners think they're being watched

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/criminal-justice-type-question-making-prisoners-think-theyre-being-watched/284415>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 12, 2005, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/criminal-justice-type-question-making-prisoners-think-theyre-being-watched/284415 "2005-01-12T18:46:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/criminal-justice-type-question-making-prisoners-think-theyre-being-watched/284415/1 "2005-01-12T18:46:37Z")

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I was a Criminal Justice major in college, but this is eluding me.

Is there a name for the practice of making people _think_ they’re being watched? Like how some schools place those dark camera bubbles in buses, and save money by only ordering a few cameras then rotate them around.

I dimly recall it starting as a method for keeping prisoners in line. The cell block was arranged in a circle around a guard station, with the path to the station obstructed from the prisoners’ views. The inmates would never know whether they were being watched, so they had to always behave to be on the safe side.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

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**Author:** ![Slacker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@Slacker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slacker)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/criminal-justice-type-question-making-prisoners-think-theyre-being-watched/284415/2 "2005-01-12T21:15:46Z")

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Well, adjust your Google search long enough and you’ll find anything. 😃

The word I was looking for is [Panopticon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon), a type of prison system designed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

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**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/criminal-justice-type-question-making-prisoners-think-theyre-being-watched/284415/3 "2005-01-12T21:52:10Z")

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> [@Slacker](#):
>
> The word I was looking for is [Panopticon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon), a type of prison system designed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham.

The theory of the Panopticon is that prisoners will behave if they believe they are being watched but will missbehave when they know that they aren’t being watched. If you set up a condition where they don’t know if they are being watched or not, they will always have to assume they are and behave accordingly.

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**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\
**Post date:** [January 12, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/criminal-justice-type-question-making-prisoners-think-theyre-being-watched/284415/4 "2005-01-12T21:53:41Z")

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Just in case anyone didn’t know.