This book by Michel Foucault is an analysis of changes in the Western penal systems during the modern age. He wrote about how this new disciplinary power led to the predominance of the prison and how it influences society as a whole.

Traditionally, power was what was seen, what was shown, and what was manifested…Disciplinary power, on the other hand, is exercised through its invisibility; at the same time it imposes on those whom it subjects a principle of compulsory visibility. In discipline, it is the subjects who have to be seen.