The Myth of the Watchtower

The Darwin Correctional Centre, located at Holtze, represents the modern evolution of prison control, not through brutality, but through surveillance. Its design and function are unmistakably Panoptic in nature. This echo’s Michel Foucault’s analysis of Jeremy Bentham’s “Panopticon,” a prison model where inmates regulate themselves because they believe they are always being watched. This design the same as another failed prison in New Zealand a testament to a failed ideology and a failure to understand basic human nature.

The centre is outfitted with CCTV, control hubs, observation points, digital tracking, and behaviour-based classifications. Inmates are managed through structured routines, monitored movement, and program compliance. Rather than inflict pain, the system applies pressure through conditions, restrictions, and delayed freedoms. Its goal is to create “docile bodies”, inmates who correct themselves because the watcher might be watching.

Panopticism in Darwin extends beyond the prison walls, digital profiles follow prisoners into parole, housing, and health systems. Surveillance becomes not a place, but a process, a carceral continuum of observation, risk assessment, and conditional reintegration. In theory, this should lead to self-regulation and rehabilitation. In reality it fails because it relies on discipline, and bureaucrats seldom have the discipline to do their jobs. Add a failure to hold them to account and the nail in the coffin has been hammered.

In the realm of criminal justice, few concepts have been adopted with more misplaced optimism than Panopticism. As mentioned above derived from the writings of French philosopher Michel Foucault and inspired by Jeremy Bentham’s blueprint for a circular prison with a central tower, Panopticism is the idea that people behave not because they are punished, but because they believe they might be watched. It is the kind of theory that excites academics and civil servants, sleek, non-violent, and built on illusion rather than confrontation.

But Panopticism was never designed for the lawless, the tribal, or the pathologically entitled. It is a system that only functions when certain moral, institutional, and cultural prerequisites are met. In Darwin, Northern Territory, where youth crime is a nightly headline and the justice system has become a revolving door, those prerequisites have collapsed. What remains is not a new model of enlightened control, but a hollow shell of authority that fails to deter even the pettiest offence.

The core principle of Panopticism is simple. The theory that constant surveillance leads to self-discipline. The Panopticon prison, with its one-way watchtower at the centre, was never about physical punishment, it was about the possibility of being observed. Over time, prisoners would internalise the gaze of the watcher and conform. They would behave not out of fear of punishment, but out of fear of being seen. The lack of basic psychology and ignorance to Maslows theory of motivation, and the need for significance is profound.

This concept has been extrapolated far beyond prisons. Several schools use it.  Some workplaces use it. Airports, hospitals, even traffic systems operate under this logic. In the modern bureaucratic mind, Panopticism is considered efficient, bloodless, and tidy. It avoids the messy business of confrontation and instead relies on shame, conformity, and behavioural cues.

But the system depends on a crucial assumption, that the individual fears being caught, and believes the watcher has moral and coercive authority.

The Northern Territory’s justice reformers, the virtue signallers, activists, bureaucrats, and well-meaning progressives, have seized upon Panopticism like it’s a magic trick. They love its surface appeal, no batons, no boots, no cells. Just cameras, ankle bracelets, data dashboards, and moral superiority.

These reformers believe they are ushering in a new age of restorative justice, where consequences are therapeutic, not punitive, where surveillance is enough to correct behaviour, and where criminal youths are treated like victims of circumstance rather than perpetrators of harm.

What they ignore, wilfully, like a religious cult, is that Panopticism only works in a culture where shame has power, law has consistency, and order has meaning. None of these apply in Darwin. The very person I am writing this article for, has been an active member of the judiciary for decades and in no small way, in my opinion, responsible for some, not all, but not a small amount of the social degradation, crime and destruction imposed on my hometown.

In Darwin, the cameras are everywhere. The police wear body cams. Businesses install CCTV. Youth detention centres track movements electronically. And yet crime continues, often recorded by the offenders themselves. Car thefts and assaults are livestreamed. Offenders laugh in the back of police vehicles, flipping the bird to the camera.

Why? Because the watchers no longer matter. The watcher has no bite. And the watched know it. Many of the offenders also crave significance, they wish to be “facebook Famous”, or Tik Tok Talent.

The courts release violent reoffenders with barely a reprimand. Political leaders wring their hands on social media. Police are expected to be both social workers and punching bags. There is no fear of consequences, only the thrill of spectacle. The Panopticon, in Darwin, has become a stage set for rebellion, not reform.  The several riots and mass destruction easily predicted and foreseeable, but the cult has no regulation to their conscience, they would accept the murder of a hundred more Declan’s and Linford’s rather than accept they are accessories to evil.

Panopticism assumes the presence of a moral centre, a watchful eye, real or imagined, whose values are respected. In Darwin, the watchtower is not feared, it is ignored. Worse, it is mocked.

The bureaucratic class, and the associated parasites and leeches that profit from human suffering are full of theorists who have never faced down a violent offender in their lives, continue to double down. They design ever more “trauma-informed” responses. They invest (with taxpayer funds) in wraparound services. They pay consultants to evaluate “offender journeys.” But the simple truth remains, the discipline that Panopticism requires is gone.

A child raised without consequences will not be deterred by a camera. A community that sees the justice system as a joke will not cooperate with it. And an offender who faces no cost for his behaviour will continue that behaviour until someone stops him. Just like the revisionist rantings of the NT Independents new columnist John B. Lawrence they have been proven wrong time and again, but they just don’t shut up, they double down.

The tragedy of Darwin is not that Panopticism was tried, especially after the spectacular failures in New Zealand, and several other attempts Australia wide, it is that it was tried in place of actual discipline. Reformers imagined that symbols would substitute for action, that presence would substitute for punishment, and that “watching” could replace “correcting.”I could write another article on what works, but frankly, so could anyone with a shred of common sense.

I’ve already written over 800 pieces on crime and security, outlining practical solutions, grounded in facts, evidence, and hard-earned experience. That material is readily available for anyone who’s serious.

This piece isn’t about responding to the latest round of ideological fluff from another  social justice crusader. His arguments collapsed under the weight of his own contradictions, and the comments section under the article did a better job of dismantling their claims than any formal rebuttal could. There's little dignity in kicking someone who's already fallen flat on intellectual grounds.

What I am doing here is identifying the actual root of the problem, giving the public a name, a direction, and a flashlight to shine into the mess. If you want to understand the chaos created by these ideologues, you need to know where it starts, what sustains it, and who’s benefiting from it.

For those fond of quoting scripture when it suits them, fine. I’ll play that game too. Darkness doesn’t vanish by shouting it down, it disappears when exposed to truth. And if the devil hates anything, it’s being called by name. So, let’s do that. Let’s stop dancing around symptoms and finally confront the disease.

See, discipline is not a symbol. It is not a metaphor. It is a function of civilization itself, the line between freedom and anarchy. Panopticism without discipline is a fantasy. And in Darwin, as in any place where reality trumps theory, the result is chaos, not correction.

As discipline dies, so does the illusion of control. From the author.

The opinions and statements are those of Sam Wilks and do not necessarily represent whom Sam Consults or contracts to. Sam Wilks is a skilled and experienced Security and Risk Consultant with 3 decades of expertise in the fields of Real estate, Security, and the hospitality/gaming industry. Sam has trained over 1,000 entry level security personnel, taught defensive tactics, weapons training and handcuffs to policing personnel and the public. His knowledge and practical experience have made him a valuable asset to many organisations looking to enhance their security measures and provide a safe and secure environment for their clients and staff.