This book studies the complexity and dynamics of family relationships in the test of incarceration, and more particularly those of marital relationships. Originality – and the limit – of the approach of sociologist Gwénola Ricordeau is to want to “ close to prisoners At the same time as an analyst of their condition.
This work, taken from a doctoral thesis in the social sciences, deals with a subject slightly different from that announced by the title retained by the publisher. Rather, he seeks to analyze the nature and the transformations of the links they have with relatives. Different cases arise and are illustrated: when the links have been broken well before imprisonment, when its links do not resist imprisonment, when they are reconstituted during ?) Incarceration, when its links are maintained by adapting, finally when other links are created thanks to correspondence networks.
This work is part of recent surveys. That of theINSEE On the family history of the detained men had estimated at nearly 500,000 the number of people concerned in France by the imprisonment of a parent, a spouse, a child, a brother or a sister, that of Le Quéau had studied the living conditions of the families of prisoners, and more recently the study by Géraldine Bouchard explored, from the testimonies of 46 families, the daily life of the detainees and the process of “ prisonerization Who accompanies him. If Géraldine Bouchard’s book ended on the ways of “ maintain links », That of Gwénola Ricordeau continues the work by analyzing all the possible transformations of family ties during imprisonment (maintenance, rupture, adaptation, and even creation of new links) from the point of view of prisoners and their loved ones.
Sociology at the risk of engagement
The originality of this book is based on its sources, a substantial field work, combining personal experience (as a visitors and friends of prisoners) and investigation protocol, associating observations and interviews. The investigation took place both on the side of people still incarcerated or who were and on the side of relatives of prisoners. More than eighty interviews were carried out with ex-prisoners (eleven former detainees found thanks to associations) and prisoners (71 men and women incarcerated within five penal establishments selected for their diversity (two remand homes, two detention centers and a central house). Only 25 loved ones have been interviewed, found in the reception structures of visitors or by militant networks. Essentially a conjugal link with the detainee (apart from a mother, a father and a girl) and are essentially women (only three men are counted). because it is mainly women who come to visit men, women supporting their loved ones more than men do: when they are incarcerated, women are left.
The other originality of the book is the double point of view adopted: Gwénola Ricordeau is immediately as “ close to prisoners, but also sociologist (P. 11). It is both its essential contribution and its main limit. This double posture is not problematic in itself, it is even fertile sociologically when Gwénola Ricordeau uses it to describe the tensions that she has known on her field of investigation: “ In prison, I was one of those who went to the other side, a passage considered unworthy. At the university, I hid my life suspended from the visiting rooms, and the feeling of indignity of my experience continued to me. “(P. 15) He is a shame for the analysis that Gwénola Ricordeau does not account for the visits she made” regularly to detained friends “(P. 17) of which the reader will not know anything, and that the field journal is so little about his personal experience of close and this double status has not been the subject of real reflexive work. We would have really liked to know more about this singular experience all the more since this status of loved one seems to authorize the sociologist to take a critical and biased look at the treatment of detained persons and their loved ones by the prison administration: “ The prison system appears to me as a humiliation for detained people and for us, their loved ones. “(P. 11) Besides, Abel-Hafed Benotman, author of the preface to the written book:” Gwénola Ricordeau is a woman in struggle (P. 9). She is in turn a sociologist and an activist who is on the side of “ victims of the system (detainees and their loved ones) (P. 199), which repeatedly leads to generalizations and unleashed assertions.
To the prison test
The book takes us first to the heart of the prison system, “ to the prison test ». Gwénola Ricordeau goes around the possible shapes of links with the outside (visits, mail, telephone, radio, money, packages, etc.). It quickly mentions the experimentation of family life units in 2000 which allows prisoners of Rennes and prisoners of Poissy and Saint-Marin de Ré since 2003-2004 to benefit from it once a quarter. It underlines the multiple administrative constraints, requests for visits permit and controls (censorship of mail, excavations of prisoners and families, blunders, etc.) which frame and constitute these links.
According to her, “ In remand homes, visitors spend less time with the detainees than to submit to the various checks. “(P. 23) Among” The multiple obstacles to the visit of a loved one “, It relates the refusals of license, the long deadlines for obtaining the visit permit (“ Up to three weeks in Fleury-Mérogis in 2003 ») Without specifying what time the people interviewed obtained their visit permit, nor to whom the administration effectively refused it. It relates with finesse the making of prior appointments to the visiting room, the transport problems to achieve establishments far from city centers or the expectations of families. Not only does life are expensive in prison but for the family, incarceration results in a reduction in income and the appearance of new charges.
Chapter 2 on “ The misfortunes of separation Is particularly exciting. It shows both the erosion of family and emotional ties, even the abandonment of loved ones (it is better to say for the prisoner that he leaves them rather than left) but also the solidarity and the creation of other links by the Bovet mail or the classifieds. He analyzes how much women are more united than men and how much prisoners have overprotection behaviors compared to their loved ones (especially if they are women). Those whose relationship survives in imprisonment often pride themselves on being a couple like the others (p. 71) while the marital relationship must adapt to the constraints of incarceration, which must be held outside for those who are inside and that loved ones sometimes feel invested with a mission (be strong for two) involving to take on yourself or be forced to lie. Chapter 3, entitled “ Links beyond the walls “Says the visiting rooms with ethnographic precision. What is interesting is this variation of situations, the forced parlor or that for pleasure, the description of waiting, the preparation, the rituals, the visiting room under the eyes of each other, sexuality in the parlor and the galleys.
Continuous life
Chapter 4 on “ Shared prison Analysis how family history continues to be written inside the walls of the prison. He deals with three moments of family life that constitutes the marital meeting, children in prison and death. Inmates come through classified ads to meet a new partner and weddings are celebrated in prison. There is also the presence of children in prison, when a pregnant woman is incarcerated, and for incarcerated parents, the difficult announcement of the offense, often postponed to later, or the precarious maintenance of the link with the child, thanks to relatives or to volunteers of the Children-Parents. Finally, death can affect detainees and relatives. Gwénola Ricordeau notes the “ little consideration “Administration with regard to families who have lost an inmate and says that” Many relatives are informed of the death of the detainee very late, even fortuitously (P. 142). Even more frequent is the situation of detainees informed of the death of a loved one, and some detainees interviewed relate the terrible announcement of the death of their loved one, which constitutes a subject of anxiety for long sentences.
The following chapter deals with sexuality and especially the right of prisoners to sexuality, sexual frustrations, masturbation, homosexuality and sexuality in the parlor. With accuracy, Gwénola Ricordeau notes the variability of situations with regard to the surveillance of the visiting rooms: “ Notwithstanding his ban, the sexuality between prisoners and their partner depends above all on the balance of power between prisoners, supervisors and management. (P. 158)
The last chapter deals with “ Liberty before you », Coexistence for the prisoner of the fear of not going out and that of going out and for women of the fear that their companion will be different outside that he was inside. He generally describes the long way to the exit, the question of reintegration, permissions and first moments outside. The reader is missing here the experiences reported by relatives interviewed the return to the house of liberated people or by the ex-prisoners of the ways of regaining their place when they were absent.
The limits of an approach between personal experience and learned relationship to the object
This book is the result of this permanent tension between personal experience and learned relationship to the object. Gwénola Ricordeau justifies, in his conclusion, his position as “ take part »The offender and the prisoner. His point of view at the threshold of the prison is original even if we can regret that his demonstration loses his strength because of a sometimes exacerbated denouncing posture. The mobilization of extracts from numerous interviews makes it a dense story of singular stories and suffering. These extracts are however often too short and the characteristics of the interviewees are not very detailed. The social dimension, however central for family ties, seems neglected as well as the facts alleged against the detainee when these elements can contribute to the maintenance or not of family ties. The choice to present the conditions of detainees and relatives together aims to refuse the usual distinction between those who undergo the prison and those who are at the origin by their acts. This choice does not make it possible to distinguish the specific sufferings of each other and to underline the particular efforts of families to support their improper imprisonment.