Beyond the common representation of prison as a place of lawlessness, Yasmine Bouagga delivers a fascinating investigation into the uses of law in prison. It shows how these are linked to the professional and social positions of the various actors in the prison system, but also to the biographical paths of the detained people.
Prison is often presented as the “ choice of reason » – to use the title of the recent book by Stéphane Jacquot and Dominique Raimbourg (2015) – to which democratic regimes would be condemned. “ Choice of reason “, because prisons would be violations that, for their own preservation, democracies should make to their principles. The desire to reduce – if not to resolve – this contradiction has undoubtedly resulted in the constitution of a prison law and, subsequently, in its institutionalization (Herzog-Evans 1998 ; From Schutter, Kaminski, 2002 ; Froment, Kaluszynski, 2011). This movement to legalize prisons, to which the concern to humanize them is often linked, is precisely at the heart ofHumanize the sentence ?
In this work, the author provides the results of a field investigation lasting seven months in two remand centers in the Paris region. This work is remarkable for the wealth of materials that the author has collected and for the diversity of the sites of the investigation. Indeed, in addition to her extensive access to administrative documents, the author carried out observations in situ in different instances (sentence adjustment hearings, access to the law systems, etc.), but also interviews with prisoners. His ethnographic approach allows him to reconstruct the uses of the law by prisoners and the professional practices of multiple actors in the prison world (integration and probation advisors, guards, officers, etc.), as well as those who make “ pass the right » (lawyers, legal professionals, community volunteers, etc.).
Behind the scenes
The organization ofHumanize the sentence ? follows the journey of the detained person, from his entry into prison to his release. The author describes very precisely how the institution “ transforms individuals into “inmates” » (p. 43), notably through the “ arrival route » (from the confinement to the release of the « neighborhood arrivals “).
But this journey is best understood from behind the scenes of the penitentiary institution which constitute various bodies where Yasmine Bouagga made observations: the assignment commission (which proceeds, at the end of the “ arrival route », to the assignment of the inmate to a cell), the disciplinary commission (which judges infractions by prisoners of the internal regulations), the single multidisciplinary commission, etc. The author evokes the confrontation, in these instances, of the multiplicity of logics of action and professional cultures of the different actors of the prison system which allows her to describe a prison space “ in tension between the legal and the discretionary » (p. 107).
As shown in the article by C. de Galembert (2014), this tension is particularly observable in the treatment of disciplinary offenses. The law seems to be badly mistreated in the disciplinary commissions that Yasmine Bouagga describes as “ between ourselves which model(s) themselves on criminal justice » (p. 95). The author observed “ weak defenses “, “ sometimes contrary to professional ethics » (p. 103). In fact, faced with potentially infinite infractions, the committees tend to mobilize more the register of negotiation, in order, to quote the words of a deputy director, that “ the sanction (is) better perceived by the prisoner » (p. 104).
Execution of sentences
Complementary to the work of Xavier de Larminat (2014), Yasmine Bouagga takes us into the increasingly thick jungle of sentence adjustment measures (conditional release, semi-liberty, placement under electronic surveillance, etc.). She shows how the “ mobilization » of prisoners is the first of the expectations formulated by prison staff and how the execution of sentences mainly consists of “ push (the prisoners) to accept penal constraints, (…) encourage them to make efforts at reparation (payment to civil parties) or work on themselves (training, psychological work) through reward measures acting like carrots » (p. 109)
Through its detailed description of the sentencing commissions, it restores both a common sense favorable to the adjustment of sentences, but also how the situations are assessed and how the filters and selections made by the sentencing advisors work. integration and probation (CIP). By exploring the criteria for assessing the members of these commissions, she underlines that the expectations include gendered representations and “ linked to a certain class habit » (p. 125), particularly concerning the relationship to work and the nature of the detained person’s family relationships.
Yasmine Bouagga’s analysis of the work of CIP reveals a profession “ in crisis “, due to tensions between “ assistive posture ” And “ correctional posture » (Bouagga, 2012, p. 328). The author rightly notes that if computerization promotes “ more homogeneous and standardized treatments » (p. 145), the follow-up « from a distance » carried out by the CIPmonopolized by the production of writings, contributes to a bureaucratization of their relations with the prisoners (p. 143).
What access to the law ?
Yasmine Bouagga describes a prison system, which is fundamentally a place of exclusion and coercion, marked by a process of legalization which proceeds from a conception of the law as a means of inclusion (social and civic). Penetration through the legal culture » of the prison that the author depicts is carried out in particular through multiple stakeholders (lawyers, associations, etc.) who maintain various relationships with the prison administration. She also mentions all those who can provide legal assistance, such as chaplains, prison visitors or receptionists of relatives of prisoners.
Despite the leitmotif of “ access to common law » (access to ordinary public services) which seems to resonate throughout the prison system, the interviews that Yasmine Bouagga conducted with detained people above all indicate the weight of their biographical trajectory on their experience of the law. The author also details how the formulation of their problems in legal terms by prisoners, but also their recourse and non-recourse to the law vary according to their social profile, their resources and their skills.
An institution in change and tension
Humanize the sentence ? describes the multiple forms taken by the process of legalization of the prison institution, beyond the simple proliferation of laws, notes, circulars, etc. and the contradictions that this proliferation can give rise to. The entry of law into prison is reflected in particular by the change in staff profile (particularly that of establishment heads) and the promotion of new skills (legal and managerial). Yasmine Bouagga also evokes the paradoxical situations that legalization sometimes results in, such as that created by the 2009 prison law which introduces an obligation to activity, without the counterpart, for prisoners, of a right to activity (p. 89).
Yasmine Bouagga’s book also shows an institution in balance between legal logics and domestic logics (p. 111) or in tension in contradictory logics, such as that, on the one hand, of mass treatment and, on the other , of the injunction to the individualization of sentences (p. 19), reinforced by the way in which philosophy “ jurist » increasingly characterizes the work of CIP« emphasizing both the rights of people and their individual responsibilities » (p. 164).
Humanize the sentence ? certainly allows the reader, thanks to the richness of the materials collected and the subtlety of their analysis, a real immersion in the world of remand centers. The author perfectly succeeds in bringing together the exploration of the materiality of the prison experience and the analysis of public policies by situating her work precisely where these are articulated with individual experiences (p. 283).
Yasmine Bouagga’s book fits remarkably into the field made up of a body of work carried out on law in prison which has made it possible to describe the fragility of the legal resources of incarcerated people and their uses of the law (for example: Rostaing, 2007 ; Durand, 2014), or the relationship of surveillance personnel to the law (Benguigi, Chauvenet, Orlic, 1994). Due to the diversity of the places investigated and the actors whose logic of action is described, Humanize the sentence ? is certainly the most complete work on the subject. Even if the ambition of the project led by Yasmine Bouagga sometimes causes it to lose depth, it certainly opens up fruitful research perspectives, particularly in comparison with other types of penitentiary establishments.
Humanize the sentence ? above all constitutes a great contribution to the debates on the humanization and modernization of the prison institution. His reading reinforces the distrust with which we can consider, from the point of view of humanization (of sentences or of the institution), the entry of law into prison. It also allows us to put into perspective the militant uses of the law (see: Israel, 2009), in particular the legal struggles carried out in prison (see: de Suremain, Bérard, 2009). These certainly participated in the constitution of a “ right imprisoned » (Salle, Chantraine, 2009) and the proof they provide of a humanization of the institution which resists legalization should encourage debates on prison to move beyond the narrow framework of law.