How did Michel Foucault use the Panopticon to explain discipline?

Michel Foucault used the Panopticon—a prison design conceived by Jeremy Bentham—as the quintessential model for the modern institution of "discipline."1

For Foucault, discipline was a mode of domination designed to render every instance of "deviance" visible, whether for the purpose of prevention or rehabilitation. The Panopticon’s structure, which places inmates under the constant, potential scrutiny of a central watchtower, exemplifies how power operates by making individuals feel they are always being watched.12

By internalizing this surveillance, individuals become self-regulating subjects. Foucault argued that this mechanism was not limited to prisons but served as a broader rationale for modern policing and social control, aiming to manipulate and reform both body and soul to maintain an optimally productive citizenry. This dynamic illustrates his concept of power-knowledge, where the surveillance of individuals is inextricably linked to the production of knowledge about them, ultimately shaping them into "normal" or "deviant" subjects.1