The Sociology of Prison Space: A Theoretical and Methodological Framework for Carceral Studies

Abstract Sociologically, prison is a social space whose existence is functionally not only limited to the institution of punishment, but constructs the dynamics of power, social relations, and identity in society. This paper examines prisons in a sociological study of space with a unit of analysis of the prison space structure that forms patterns of interaction, herarchy, and the process of adaptation between prisoners and prison officers. This type of research is a literature review of a number of relevant literature both books, articles, and other types of scientific works with a descriptive analysis model. The social theory used is the concept of Panopticon developed by Michael Foucault about the structure of surveillance and the concept of Total institution from Erving Goffman. There are three important things discussed in this article, namely why prison as an isolation space is important to be discussed sociologically, what is the scope of the study of prison sociology, and what is the contribution of its study to social science studies.