A few hundred years ago, if you did something wrong you
were physically punished—beaten or even hanged, usually in
front of a crowd. The whole point of this was to warn the people
watching—if you do something bad, this could happen to you.
Except it didn’t quite work. Because if you’re watching a starving
thirteen-year-old girl being flogged for stealing a loaf of bread,
you’re not thinking about what a terrible person she is, and how
you’d better not ever do anything like that. You’re thinking,
That poor girl. She only wanted something to eat. And the people who
are doing the punishing don’t want you to feel sorry for her.

So in the nineteenth century things changed. Instead of
physically hurting criminals, we started to put them in prison.
And the thing about prison is, you’re always being watched, by
guards and (nowadays) security cameras. Even if there isn’t
actually anyone watching you at that second, there might be, and
you’ve got no way of knowing. Sound familiar? It should,
because this doesn’t just happen in prisons. It also happens in
schools, hospitals, factories—even walking down the street,
chances are you’re being watched by a surveillance camera.

Are you starting to  …