« Risques » et « radicalisation ». Critiques savantes et professionnelles d’un outil d’évaluation criminologique

Chantraine, Gilles; Scheer, David

doi:10.3917/sopr.040.0073

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…They progressively build a ‘profile’ and complete an assessment report that will be used in assigning each prisoner to the most appropriate facility for serving their sentence. The professionals each deploy their own knowledge and techniques: clinical interviews, family inquiries, psychological or actuarial tests (Chantraine and Scheer, 2020b), to analyse each individual situation. Each prisoner is invited to participate in the assessment, which is a transparent process.…”

Section: Prison Staff and How They Deal With Intelligencementioning

confidence: 99%

Intelligence and radicalization in French prisons: Sociological analysis bottom-up

Scheer

Chantraine

2021

Security Dialogue

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In the context of the fight against Islamist radicalization in France, prison intelligence rapidly developed from 2015 through the gradual creation of a dedicated service and a specific corps of professionals. This professionalization of prison intelligence work has deeply transformed the prison administration. This article aims to describe and analyse these transformations on the basis of an ethnographic study conducted in radicalization assessment units, which are specific units set up to assess prisoners who have committed or are suspected of committing crimes linked to radical Islam. We shall describe how the guards, probation officers, psychologists and educators participating in assessing the prisoners adapt to the new, encroaching presence of the intelligence mission. We shall analyse the forms of collaboration and competition between this staff and the prison intelligence officers. Lastly, we will examine criticism of the intelligence activity in the radicalization assessment units voiced by various professionals. The interpenetration of the assessment work and the intelligence mission – which are formally distinct missions – produces a specific type of knowledge relating to radicalized prisoners: a reproduction of certain representations or ‘profiles’.

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Section: Prison Staff and How They Deal With Intelligencementioning

confidence: 99%

Intelligence and radicalization in French prisons: Sociological analysis bottom-up

Scheer

Chantraine

2021

Security Dialogue

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“…Tools of the actuarial or structured professional judgement type, such as VERA-2 (Pressman and Flockton, 2012) are nevertheless available (Herzog-Evans, 2018). Although the staff is trained in their use, they are not imposed as the main basis for evaluation and are also strongly criticized (Chantraine and Scheer, 2020).…”

Section: Unmasking the Dissimulatorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performing the enemy? No-risk logic and the assessment of prisoners in “radicalization assessment units” in French prisons

Chantraine

Scheer

2020

Punishment & Society

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This article is based on a sociological research, combining qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations, undertaken in “radicalization assessment units” (RAU) in French prisons. The RAUs are units that hold, for a fixed period of time, a dozen prisoners described as “Islamic terrorists” or “suspected radicalization” so that a multidisciplinary team can evaluate their degree of radicalization. In the first section we will show how the climate of terrorist attacks during the period prior to opening of the RAUs not only engendered a warlike rhetoric that would overdetermine the decline of trust in detention. It also engendered institutional improvisation whereby these special units were set up one after another without much preparation. Secondly, we will detail the RAU’s security organization and the warlike relationship that grew between the guards and prisoners, between radical defiance and criminology of the Other. In the third section we will return to the evaluation work itself. During this evaluation work in the RAU, although each professional makes efforts to refine the prisoners’ profiles, the job is deeply biased by an obsession to fight against the “ taqîya” and against “dissimulators”. Lastly, at the end of the evaluation, the evaluation summary and recommendations for final orientation are overdetermined by the imperative to avoid professional risks.

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“…Les données mobilisées dans le cadre de cet article sont issues d'une enquête menée en 2017 et 2018, et se basent sur une centaine de journées d'observations ethnographiques lors d'immersions dans trois prisons françaises, et sur 90 entretiens semi-directifs 2 . Dans la lignée de la tradition ethnographique en sociologie des institutions totales (Goffman, 1990) et plus spécifiquement de la prison (par exemple, Clemmer, 1940 ;Sykes, 1997 ;Bosworth, 1999 ;Chantraine, 2004 ;Liebling, Arnold, 2004 ;Crewe, 2009 ;Fassin, 2015), il s'est agi d'étudier, de comprendre et de décrire l'organisation et le fonctionnement institutionnel de ces unités, les relations entre professionnels, la nature effective de leur travail au quotidien, les expériences individuelles des détenus, le processus d'évaluation proprement dit (Chantraine, Scheer, 2020a), la mobilisation éventuelle d'outils criminologiques ad hoc (Chantraine, Scheer, 2020b) et la montée en puissance du renseignement pénitentiaire dans la lutte contre la radicalisation .…”

Section: Introductionunclassified

Ce que la lutte contre la radicalisation fait au métier de surveillant de prison

Chantraine¹,

Scheer²

2022

champpenal

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Cet article, basé sur une recherche ethnographique, analyse les transformations du métier de surveillant sous l’effet de la lutte contre la radicalisation et de la mise en œuvre des « quartiers d’évaluation de la radicalisation » (QER) dans les prisons françaises, en embrassant les différents types d’activité du surveillant au quotidien dans toute leur diversité : « surveiller, séparer, isoler » d’abord, « négocier, dialoguer punir » ensuite, et, enfin, « observer, consigner, tracer ». Ce cadre d’observation nous permet de décrire, dans un premier temps, la défiance guerrière qui surplombe les activités de surveillance et de contrôle. Dans un second temps, nous détaillons les formes de dialogue qui s’instaurent néanmoins entre détenus et surveillants, parfois sous-tendues par des objectifs de « déradicalisation » informelle ; enfin, nous décrivons comment l’activité d’écriture des surveillants est structurée à la fois par leur participation au travail d’évaluation des détenus, et leur enrôlement plus ou moins fort dans l’activité de renseignement pénitentiaire.

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« Risques » et « radicalisation ». Critiques savantes et professionnelles d’un outil d’évaluation criminologique

Cited by 9 publications

References 16 publications

Intelligence and radicalization in French prisons: Sociological analysis bottom-up

Intelligence and radicalization in French prisons: Sociological analysis bottom-up

Performing the enemy? No-risk logic and the assessment of prisoners in “radicalization assessment units” in French prisons

Ce que la lutte contre la radicalisation fait au métier de surveillant de prison

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