The Panopticon Revisited: The Problem of Monitoring Private Prisons

For a governmental entity squeezed by budgetary constraints, delegation of costly tasks to a private contractor that promises to perform them for less is an appealing option.Recently, public agencies responsible for our prison systems have rediscovered the allure of this sort of privatization.'The word "rediscovered" is apt, for while an aura of modernity has come to surround the drive to replace public function with private entrepreneurship,' the concept of private prisons is a venerable one; the most comprehensive early proposal for privately managed incarceration is contained in Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, published in 1791.3Despite the concept's long lineage, the spectre of private prisons has created a furor of late. 4The instinctive reaction of many commentators has been to assert that running the prisons is something that "ought" to be done by the state. 5This Note gives rigor to that visceral response by 1.There are roughly two dozen correctional institutions under private operation or ownership.N.Y.