NCJ Number
138078
Journal
Revue francaise de sociologie Volume: 33 Dated: (1992) Pages: 3-32
Date Published
1992
Length
30 pages
Annotation
Using the example of France, the authors argue that contemporary democracies attempt to justify prison sentences because they need them to maintain everyday order.
Abstract
Although numerous prisons existed earlier, historians date the beginning of French prison sentences to the French Revolution. At that time, the government simply responded to the need to maintain order in a legal manner. The need to lock away marginal populations (vagrants, the poor, the unruly) through the 19th and 20th centuries. To respond to this need, the "Founders' Myth" is created according to which the prison sentence makes the inmates better members of society. This affirmation of the positive value of prison sentences becomes especially forceful during historical periods that attempt to create a new, more legitimate system of government (e.g., during the two French restorations and after the liberation from the Germans in 1944). The authors argue that even today the corrective value of prison terms is asserted only to conceal the need for lock-away security.