Punishment without prison

The work of Xavier de Larminat is particularly interesting to read in the current context marked by the reforms initiated by the current Minister of Justice which aim to individualize the judicial response and to develop alternatives to the prison sentence such as the measure of penal constraint (Law of August 15, 2014). The author proposes a study on the conditions of execution of so-called open environment sentences. Probation means “ all penal measures not involving confinement but inducing forms of control and support in an open environment, without isolating the litigant from the social context in which he operates » (p. 2). It shows the still virgin nature of this field of research which testifies, for the author, to the little consideration that probation enjoys at the level of the prison administration and in society. However, Xavier de Larminat shows the importance of the silent growth of the field of probation. Each reform establishing it is accompanied by an increase in the number of people supported and the number of agents. The multiplication of measures is accompanied by a significant diversification of the profiles of litigants in the open environment. From community service to criminal restraint, from electronic bracelets to suspended sentences with probation, they today concern three times more convicts than prison. However, due to the chaotic trajectory of the institutionalization of the open environment made “ depending on social openings and criminal situations » (p. 33), probation is struggling to establish itself within the prison administration. For Xavier de Larminat the open environment suffers from the pervasiveness of the logic of detention and “ remains buried under concerns over inmate surveillance and facility security » (p. 32). This results in a feeling of relegation on the part of agents and a significant lack of resources.

From reintegration to management of convicts

In this rich work, Xavier de Larminat analyzes how the execution of sentences in an open environment is subject to the effect of reforms which aim at a dual imperative of risk management (of recidivism) and management of flows (of litigants). Consequently, probation is marked by a paradigm shift: the prevention of recidivism has gradually replaced the concern for the reintegration of convicts. This mutation results from and leads to changes both at the level of the structural organization of services and at the level of the logic of action of agents, thus favoring a shift in professional identities. However, according to the author, these movements weaken the working conditions of prison integration and probation counselors (CPIP) and undermine the care of litigants.

Indeed, the execution of sentences in an open environment suffers from a new managerial and criminological orientation. Probation is going through a vast movement of administrative and managerial rationalization where, according to the author, returns are favored by increasing resources. It is now essentially driven by a concern for speed and efficiency. Added to this is an increasingly pervasive culture of evaluation. The combination of these logics results in an effort to standardize intervention methods which considerably reduce the autonomy and capacity for assessment of probation officers. The invocation of the individualization of the penal response would play an essential legitimizing role there: “ individualization is in fact presented as a safe concept, whose positive connotation reflects on the entire model but whose rigid interpretation which is made of it actually reinforces the efforts of standardization and bureaucratic rationalization » (p. 91). At the “ standardization of practices around the evaluation-modulation couple » (p 196), the specialization of agents reduces their versatility. This also results in an erosion of the sectorization and transversality of care denounced by the author.

The standardization of practices is reinforced by their computerization which also appears to be a tool for controlling agents. The computerization of practices via the introduction of software such as APPI according to the author, therefore promotes self-control and conformity of CPIP while keeping them away from the concerns of users. Xavier de Larminat also focuses on the detrimental effects of an evaluation grid for convicts, the diagnosis with criminological purposes (DAVC), specifying nevertheless that this was not adopted after experimentation in view of the agents’ protest. We then see that the processes of standardization and computerization do not fully escape the modalities of action of probation officers capable, even marginally, of slowing down the logics analyzed. Likewise, it is important not to overestimate the ability of administrations to process, interpret and use digital data as a tool for controlling professionals with regard to their volumes and the active relationships of agents to the standards of use of IT devices.

For X. De Larminat, the focus on recidivism also contributes to a redefinition of intervention standards to the extent that it increases control over convicts and promotes their individual responsibility. Probation is then grappling with a movement already well described by researchers in the social sciences and particularly in the field of social action (including R. Castel whom the author rightly cites several times) but also in the community prison (we can think of the work of Gilles Chantraine for example), which consists of “ detach individuals from their social condition to consider them only for and by themselves » (p. 187). Collective responsibility is thus erased in favor of “ individual accountability of the condemned, artificially placed in a position to behave as totally free actors and detached from any contingency » (p. 189).

All of these transformations directly impact the professional experience of probation officers whose situation seems clear. Their difficulties are innumerable: CPIPpoorly integrated within the prison administration, struggle to register in their local territory, the partnerships they manage to weave always remaining very fragile. On this point nevertheless, we would like to know more, as when the author quickly outlines the complexity of the relationships between CPIP and medical personnel. THE CPIP also suffer from a considerable lack of resources, the services operate in a situation of “ endemic saturation » (p. 34). The author also demonstrates the internal divisions between the actors with very different visions of their profession. The insufficiency of communication spaces between probation actors (p. 60-61) further complicates the creation of a collective identity with which the members of the body could identify (p. 62-63). The author also shows the disenchantment of agents, often overqualified, whose disillusionment begins during their training and, according to the author, continues to grow during their career. Professionals are disconcerted by current reforms, question the meaning of their actions and strive to preserve their threatened autonomy. Without reference, they work in a general climate of uncertainty.

Difficulties and adjustment of probation officers

In such a context, the author analyzes the shifts in professional identities and describes several styles of practice – the social worker, the controller, the criminologist – adopting a more microsociological look. The ideal types presented reflect the unique objectives pursued by the agents, their use of different means of action, their distinct (and sometimes competing) modes of intervention, and the specific visions of the profession that drive them. The proposed analysis leads to qualifying the essentially critical comments on current developments, showing how the CPIP manage, for some of them, to resist or adapt to the different movements described first “ from above “. Moreover, the critical reading of current changes should not give way to a magnified reading of the past, as the author himself notes. Xavier de Larminat shows the plurality of normative systems and notes that there is less a replacement of one style by another than a sedimentation of modes of action by successive additions. The table on “ adjustment modes » (p. 138) of probation officers with regard to the reforms offers a very interesting reading of the actions of professionals and their diversity. The scope of these analyzes also seems to go well beyond the field of study of Xavier de Larminat: they could account for the reactions of state agents to political developments concerning them.

The strength of the analyzes sometimes suffers from a mobilization that seems too weak of the survey data even though the fieldwork carried out was substantial. The author carried out long months of observation within two prison integration and probation services, notably attending more than 63 interviews with convicts conducted by 19 probation officers. However, the work contains very few extracts from these meetings. The verbatims are often very short and they are not always put into perspective with the entire corpus, making it difficult for the reader to appreciate its representativeness. A greater use of observation elements would also have made it possible to shed even more precise light on the work in action of professionals, on the way in which they define, tentatively, the methods of monitoring convicts, or on the way in which, by tinkering with their intervention, they carry out a certain number of targeting and selection of litigants investing more heavily in the monitoring of certain profiles. Finally, the detailed presentation of some interview situations could have left more room for the analysis of the posture of the litigants, the balance of power necessarily circulating during the interviews with the CPIPthe author specifying in fact that the condemned are not “ nevertheless crushed » (p. 175) through institutional and judicial power games.

The fact remains that the work of Xavier de Larminat stands out as a reference. It is essential reading for all social control theorists.