Considering the social consequences caused by imprisonment, prisons and other total institutions cannot be considered only as formal institutions and analyzed only within a formal approach. Such a formal and legal approach is too simplistic. In modern states, the prison is the most important tool of social control combined with coercion. It continues to be part of the political, social, economic, and moral order.

Traditional criminological and sociological approaches to the study of the phenomenon of incarceration, a component of which is the existence of a prison subculture and an informal hierarchy of prisoners, are based on the study of values, norms and elements of the social structure (social roles, statuses, groups, etc.). However, at the center of the author's approach is the thesis that torture and inhuman treatment are an objective element of modern political relations, an integral component of power relations, and at the same time a product of the spread of panoptic discipline in the society of the 21st century.