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The relationship between the prison and the wider society cannot be stressed enough. For Foucault, the prison is not a marginal building on the edge of a city, but is closely integrated into the city. The same "strategies" of power and knowledge operate in both locations, and the mechanisms of discipline that control the delinquent also control the citizen. Indeed, the methods of observation and control that Foucault describes originated in monasteries, in hospitals and in the army. Related to this point is Foucault's argument that we cannot abolish the prison, because our ways of thinking about and carrying out punishment will not allow it. The prison is part of a "carceral network" that spreads throughout society, infiltrating and penetrating everywhere.

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