I don't know if it's available any more but there was a series on The History Channel ( from back when it had, y'know, history on it ) called "The Big House" with Paul Sorvino narrating that covers how this came to be.

I realized a massive high school being built in my (then) home town had an architecture based on prison design. Not only were prisons a political innovation, but they had a lot to do with how architecture developed.