The Panopticon model, proposed by the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, is actually a mechanism of self-censorship. Prisoners in cells arranged in a ring with completely open fronts would have to control their own actions and not do anything wrong in order not to be punished, since they would not know when the guards in the…

Dylan Matthews recently published an article at Vox titled Prisons are terrible, and there’s finally a way to get rid of them. Matthews’ article starts out strong, beginning with an explanation of the horrific costs of prisons. He describes the appalling rates of physical and sexual assault, the data on systemic racism, and the costs…