In view of – or rather, under the pretense of – the struggle against terrorism, on the one hand, and the
fear of increasing crime in everyday life, on the other, Western democracies today are confronted with
a variety of forms of supervision and control. The concept of a “disciplinary society”, a term coined by
Michel Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish. The Birth of the Prison Society, therefore, appears
timelier than ever.