Abstract
This paper is based on a qualitative survey on the conditions of release of the poorest prisoners in France and their search for housing. 44 interviews were conducted with social worker and other professionals. Shifting the theoretical view from the “closing effect” of confinement to the analysis of experiential continuities on either side of prison walls, the analysis replaces the confinement experience in an experience of “carcerality” that encompasses and displaces it. In this article, it is less a question of summarizing all the results concerning access to housing for people leaving prison in France than of focusing on three paradoxes that often remain in the shadow of the sociology of prison, and which call for a review of certain routines. First, incarceration itself is less a “prison shock” than a banal experience in a very precarious trajectory; moreover, the “less eligibility” which requires that prison conditions be worse than the living conditions of the poor worker outside, finds its limits in the experience of the person for whom prison becomes a protective asylum. Secondly, the release is characterised by a lack of preparation and radical uncertainty, particularly for the poorest prisoners. It is less a “liberation” than a return to the worst precariousness. In other words, release does not end the sentence, it is an integral part of it. Finally, access to accommodation, which is often the only option, extends the prison experience: concentration of former prisoners, insalubrity, violence and discipline form the backbone of daily life.
Prison; Poverty; Carcerality; Prison release; Despectification; Housing