The Panopticon is a type of institutional building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1791. The design consists of a circular structure with an “inspection house” at its center, from which the inspector could watch inmates that were housed along the outer ring.
Bentham conceived the basic plan as being equally applicable to schools, hospitals, poorhouses, and madhouses, but he devoted most of his attention to developing a design for a prison. He described the Panopticon as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.”