What is it about?
We look at 150 years of asylum and prison institutionalization in France and find that when mental hopsitalization increases, incarceration decreases and vice versa. We then show that this "mirror image" is a mystery, as it cannot be explained by a population transfer or a building transfer. We ponder other possible explanations for the phenomenon.
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Why is it important?
Researchers that try to understand why prison rates have generally increased in the western world during the last forty years look at factors that directly have to do with crime and punishment; our research suggest that this increase is part of a wider reconfiguration on what is "dangerousness" in a given space and time. It also depicts a grim future for French prison rates, as France has not yet reached the peak that mental hospital rates had reached before deinstitutionalization.
Perspectives
This paper shows that it helps to think about social pheanomena such as prison rates as part of much wider social logics. It admittedly raises more questions that it answers, and open research avenues for those interested in how our societies deals with the "marginals" and the "dangerous".
Sacha Raoult
Aix-Marseille Universite
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The mirror image of asylums and prisons: A study of institutionalization trends in France (1850–2010), Punishment & Society, April 2017, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1462474516660696.
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