CCTV
05–06–25
CCTV, or closed-circuit television, undoubtedly has a vast influence across a range of academic disciplines. This brief text focuses on its carceral form, which can be understood as a digital panopticon. It examines particularly the implementation of CCTV within prison environments, the spatial strategies that enable this regime, and their transformations when applied in public space.


Surveillance has always been a central pillar of prison institutions. Before the advent of digital technologies, it was carried out by physically present individuals; in some dystopian models, this element was embedded directly into architectural design. The most well-known example of this type is Jeremy Bentham’s proposal of the Panopticon, based on a circular layout with cells around the perimeter and a central tower, from which each prisoner is exposed to the potential gaze of surveillance, without being able to confirm its presence. 1

 Author: Jeremy Bentham – The works of Jeremy Bentham vol. IV, 172-3, Public Domain

Industrial cameras became an integral part of both interior and exterior prison spaces during the 1960s and 1970s. Their introduction was accompanied by proclamations about increased safety for both prisoners and guards, more effective control, and reduced need for human personnel – thus also savings on wage costs. 2 However, the proclaimed visions did not succeed. The camera system required the presence of surveillance staff behind monitors, from where conflicts could neither be prevented nor deescalated. 3 Nevertheless, the systems were not abolished; on the contrary, they were adapted to reinforce disciplinary function through a combination of technical and human surveillance. This hybrid model significantly affects the spatial dynamics of the prison and strengthens institutional power. CCTV surveillance – like the camera itself – is neither neutral nor objective: its presence regulates behavior and materializes the hierarchy between those with the right to watch, thereby reproducing the narrative of “us” versus “them.” Cameras are not passive objects; they actively co-constitute the everyday reality of those aware of their presence.

A typical view of a CCTV control room in a prison. Source: Building Design + Construciton (https://www.bdcnetwork.com)

Today, CCTV no longer functions solely as the “eyes” of the institution. Software now utilizes artificial intelligence models, whose responses are conditioned by preset patterns and trained on past data to predict similar future behaviors. 4 These mechanisms affirm that retributive justice is not oriented toward rehabilitation, but toward categorization and prediction, often based on bias. A lesser-discussed aspect remains the fact that recognition and surveillance technologies are, in many cases, “trained” directly within prison environments. The data streams they generate circulate not only within the apparatus of state security, but may also be shared with external entities developing additional surveillance tools. Incarcerated individuals are involuntarily involved in this process, and systems tested on them later permeate public space. 5 The result is an automation of state power and its seamless operation beyond institutions in the traditional sense. 6

As stated, the image produced by the camera is neither objective nor flawless. It is conditioned by legislative frameworks (e.g., the reduction of satellite image resolution – full resolution remains under military control) 7 and by its own technical limitations. A camera transmits an image of a given resolution, which is evaluated according to preselected parameters for monitored subjects. It reacts to suspicious objects, atypical movements, and undesired words. However, it has no ability to perceive AFFECTIVE LANDSCAPES; it overlooks trauma, anxiety, and the subjective reality of those forced to live under constant surveillance. Inside the CELL, the camera also serves as a tool that removes privacy and reinforces the notion that the right to surveil outweighs the right to privacy.


Each of us can recall the feeling that the presence of cameras evokes, even in situations where we have done nothing wrong. 8 In prisons, this stress primarily impacts incarcerated individuals, but supervising staff are also monitored by their superiors. The supposed aspect of safety is affirmed only by those doing the surveillance. 9 This conclusion is also supported by the authors of The Prison Cell: Embodied and Everyday Spaces for Incarceration, particularly in the assertion that safety is felt only by those who hold power over the resulting footage. They have access to the material, can manipulate it, or ignore the reality it captures. 10 The selective handling of video recordings is further confirmed in the article "Camera Help, but Hurt": The Role and Use of Prison Cameras for Accountability, which argues that such material is used primarily to convict the incarcerated, not as evidence to support their complaints or prove innocence. 11 Safety, then, becomes an asymmetric attribute of camera surveillance.


The use of CCTV appears to be the most widespread carceral strategy of police surveillance in public space. Scholar Jackie Wang, in her book Carceral Capitalism, describes how cameras remind us that, to this system, our monitored bodies are merely points to be watched, pacified, captured, marked, and used for commercial purposes. 12 Artist and researcher Denis Bertschi also points to the use of CCTV as a gentrification strategy, in the publication Research Otherwise.


However, the massive number of industrial cameras and the obsession with image capture often turns against the state itself. The control of such vast data does not allow for the concealment of all acts of violence, and recordings can thus aid humanitarian organizations and affiliated institutions in uncovering and testifying to violence committed against marginalized groups (e.g., police interactions with non-white bodies, actions of IDF soldiers in Gaza, etc.). 13 In a paraphrased section, Weizman also emphasizes how literal and unwieldy video recordings are. Cameras absolve no one of responsibility – not even those who operate them; on the contrary, they heighten ethical accountability.

FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE:  An Assessment of Visual Material Presented by the Israeli Legal Team at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) 12 January 2024

The camera is a tool of state power that operates through carceral logic. Its image need not be truthful, but purposeful—it produces hierarchies, confirms authority, and reinforces the boundary between those who control the recordings and those who merely appear within them. CCTV surveillance is not a guarantee of safety, but a strategy for controlling bodies, behavior, and presence.














1    Michel Foucault, Dohlížet a trestat: kniha o zrodu vězení, Prague 2000, p. 287.





























2    MASS Design Group – Vera Institute of Justice, Reimagining Prison, available at: https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/Reimagining-Prison.pdf, accessed on 29 Jan 2025.

3    Ibidem.































4    Anne Kaun – Fredrik Stiernstedt, Doing Time, the Smart Way? Temporalities of the Smart Prison, New Media & Society XXII, 2020, no. 9, pp. 1580–1599.



5    Ibidem.

6    Jackie Wang, Carceral Capitalism, Cambridge 2018, p. 75.

7    Susan Schuppli, Material Witness: Media, Forensics, Evidence, Cambridge 2020, p. 30.







8    Anna Minton, CCTV Increases People's Sense of Anxiety, The Guardian, 2012. Available at:, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/oct/30/cctv-increases-peoples-sense-anxiety, accessed on 20 Apr 2025. Another clarification for the role of surveillance shaping behaviour would be Foucalt, Discipline and Punish.

9    Victoria Inzana, et al., Cameras Help, but Hurt”: The Role and Use of Prison Cameras for Accountability, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice XL, 2024, no. 4, pp. 619–639.

10    Victoria Knight – Jennifer Turner, (ed.), The Prison Cell: Embodied and Everyday Spaces of Incarceration, London 2020, pp. 102–104.

11    See note 9.

12    See note 6, p. 257.



13    Eyal Weizman, Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability, New York 2017, p. 142.


CCTV TYPES


©2025DIPLOMA THESIS
ADÉLA VAVŘÍKOVÁ









THEORETICAL TEXT
The online archive NOTES ON PRISON forms part of a diploma project undertaken at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague, within Studio Architecture I. The overarching aim of the archive is to present and describe the practices, strategies, and associated architectural matter through which power is exercised within the prison system. These practices and spatial elements are subsequently revealed within different contexts and typologies.

The project’s political dimension contributes to the discourse on prison abolition, while also serving as a professional appeal to the architectural community: to learn to recognise spaces designed for oppression and violence, and to refuse further participation in their production. Instead, it calls for the use of imagination as a design tool, encouraging the creation of a society grounded in care and social equality.

At the top of the webpage, readers will find (1) a list of frequently asked questions related to prison abolition, (2) a glossary of terms, and (3) a manual explaining the structure of the online archive, including its categories, tags, and entries.