A Carceral archipelago (meaning a prison consisting of a series of islands) refers to social theorist Michel Foucault's work on surveillance systems and their technologies over modern societies and its practice of social control and discipline over its population in all areas of social life. Taken from his work Discipline and punish, modelled on the principle of and related to the Nation state, and ideally employed on the idea of an incarceration system producing society's need for prisons, it employs physical boundaries to gain control of urban space.
In the form of a carceral dystopia, public space is transformed into defendable space, with the installation of walls, gates, fences, surveillance cameras and security checkpoints. Such installations are meant to provide control over urban space. In these spaces, gatherings of strangers to the area are discouraged, and barricades of various forms can prevent people from entering or passing through.
Read more about Carceral Archipelago: Carceral Archipelago, Foucault's Theories On Prison and Punishment, Foucault's Themes On Carceral Archipelago