Surveillance (AQA A Level Sociology): Revision Note

Surveillance

• Surveillance is a way of controlling people’s behaviour and preventing crime

• Involves observing and collecting data about individuals, which is then used to regulate, manage, or correct their behaviour

• In today’s society, surveillance often uses advanced technology:

  • CCTV cameras, biometric scanning, and ANPR (automatic number plate recognition)

  • Electronic tagging of offenders

  • Large databases combining data from multiple sources to build profiles of individuals and groups

• Surveillance is not just for crime control; it is also used in workplaces and consumer monitoring.

Foucault's theory of surveillance

• Foucault (1975) argued that surveillance represents a new form of power, replacing older methods like public executions

• He called this disciplinary power, which is more effective than brute force, because people conform when they feel they are being watched

• Surveillance spreads beyond prisons into schools, factories, hospitals, and the army

• Professionals (teachers, doctors, psychiatrists, and social workers) act as agents of disciplinary power, monitoring and correcting deviance

The Panopticon

• Foucault illustrates surveillance and disciplinary power with the panopticon

• It is based on Bentham’s (1791) prison design, where many prisoners can be observed by a single guard, but cannot tell when they are being watched

• This creates self-surveillance – prisoners regulate their own behaviour to avoid punishment

• For Foucault, the Panopticon is a metaphor for modern society:

  • People internalise surveillance

  • They police themselves as though they are constantly being observed

Dispersal of discipline

• Surveillance has spread widely into everyday life:

  • CCTV in public

  • workplace monitoring

  • electronic tagging

• Power works through normalisation: people regulate their own behaviour by conforming to social norms

Evaluation of Foucault's theory of surveillance

Strengths

• Explains subtle forms of power

  • Foucault highlights how modern power no longer relies on brute force (e.g., executions) but instead works through surveillance and discipline

  • This helps explain why people conform even when direct punishment is absent – they internalise surveillance and regulate themselves

Criticisms

• Exaggeration of control

  • Foucault is criticised for overstating surveillance’s effectiveness

  • Goffman (1982) claims that some inmates in prisons or psychiatric hospitals manage to resist surveillance and maintain their independence, suggesting people are not simply passive under surveillance

• CCTV effectiveness is limited

  • Norris' (2012) review of global studies found that CCTV reduced crime in car parks but had little or no effect elsewhere and sometimes displaced crime instead

  • Gill and Loveday (2003) found that robbers, burglars, shoplifters and fraudsters were largely unaffected by CCTV

    • Victimisation risks were not much reduced

• Feminist critique

  • Feminists like Koskela (2012) also criticise CCTV as an extension of the 'male gaze'

  • It makes women more visible to male operators but does not make them safer

  • Surveillance may reinforce gender inequalities instead of reducing crime

Surveillance theories since Foucault

• Other theories of surveillance in today's late modern society have developed, which both build upon and criticise Foucault's theory of panopticism

Synoptic surveillance

• Mathiesen (1997) argues that while Foucault described the few watching the many, today we also have the many watching the few

• Ordinary people can monitor the powerful via media and social media:

  • Citizens can film the police, exposing misconduct

  • Politicians and celebrities are subject to constant scrutiny

  • Dashcams or helmet cameras encourage road users to self-discipline

• Mathiesen calls this the synopticon: everyone watching everyone, which acts as a form of social control

Surveillance assemblages

• Haggerty and Ericson (2000) argue that modern technologies merge into complex systems that create data doubles of individuals

• E.g. combining CCTV, facial recognition, credit card data, GPS tracking

• Surveillance extends into cyberspace, monitoring virtual as well as physical activity

Evaluation of surveillance theories since Foucault

Strengths

• Effective deterrence and control

  • CCTV and electronic monitoring reduce certain crimes, especially in controlled environments (e.g., car parks)

  • This creates a perceived risk of being caught, which encourages self-regulation

• Risk management

  • The focus is on predicting and preventing crime before it happens

  • This allows resources to be directed to where the risks are highest; e.g., airports use risk profiling to decide which passengers should be searched

• Increased accountability

  • Synoptic surveillance empowers citizens to hold the powerful to account

  • E.g., videos of police brutality and political scandals exposed through media

Criticisms

• Overreach and privacy invasion

  • Surveillance can feel intrusive and undermine civil liberties

  • Raises questions about the balance between security and freedom

• Discrimination and profiling

  • Risk-based surveillance often leads to ethnic profiling (e.g., disproportionate stop-and-search at airports)

  • Reinforces existing social inequalities rather than reducing crime.

• Limited effectiveness

  • CCTV’s impact is inconsistent: effective in controlled spaces, less so in open streets

  • Many crimes (e.g., impulsive violence, offences under drugs/alcohol) are not deterred by surveillance