France, Alternative Libertaire AL #237 - Prisons and Freedom: Our love for freedom is stronger than your walls (fr, pt)

Today the State uses all systems available to him to put away those considered undesirable 
or potentially harm "the republican order" including "marginal" and the poorly-normed es 
in prisons. But just the prison, what is it? ---- They are "left" or right, successive 
governments rely on draconian prison system and dehumanizing to quell a few more people: 
"Between 2001 and 2013, the population in detention (prison, parole, electronic bracelet) 
increased by 70% (from 47 000 to 80 700)" [1]. Prison conditions worse by the day. If that 
was not enough, the measures implemented in prisons are more stringent: ban visiting any 
"revolt", building cameras or even more complex approaches relatives for a "license"! Most 
often incarcerated es who dare to rebel against the system pay their conditions of 
detention. And sometimes it goes wrong, as recently evidenced by the aggression of young 
Deniz prison of Fleury-Merogis by his jailers, aggression was in a coma [ 2 ]. The prison 
system is violent by its very existence but also the inhuman practices perpetrated within it.

Domestic slavery

And what about the measures in place in prisons? What is the meaning of work for 1.50 an 
hour to make useful objects to anyone except the slave capital, against a hypothetical 
promise of pain management. Capitalism and multinationals are not left to enjoy this 
system. Large building companies build prisons, large multinationals invest in prisons, as 
Sodexo canteens. And of course if the work is mandatory in prison it is scarce. Subject 
reward, he performs, of course, without a contract, excluding regulations of labor law, 
and even the report of little libertarian Comptroller General of places of deprivation of 
freedom, out of the minimum limits imposed by law [3].

Prison and its functions

But what is the meaning of all this? Is it a "necessity" by which it would be necessary to 
go back to the "offender" to society? Not at all. The social role of the prison as 
analyzed by Michel Foucault is precisely the opposite of this fable socially bisounours: 
"The prison, it's been a factory of offenders; the manufacture of delinquency prison, it 
is not a failure of the prison, is his success, since it was made for it. " So prison does 
not serve to rehabilitate but in the context of a society of private property, to 
establish social markers: "Prison will keep control over the illegalities; excluding these 
effects any reintegration, it ensures that offenders remain offenders and, on the other 
hand, they remain as they are offenders under the supervision of the police and, if you 
will, at its disposal." [4] How could it be otherwise? The prison is the prototype of the 
punitive society, arbitrary reigns and allowed the force of law. How in these conditions 
claim (re) education, (re-) insert? Moreover, the company is not mistaken as the former 
prisoner-e-e is marked for life from infamy, an erasable difficult social task. Against 
all forms of confinement, against all prisons, against the tools of the state to suppress 
the emancipation of peoples, freedom of each and all prisoners!

David and Vince (Paris AL East)


[ 1 ] See the website of the journal Fly Away

[ 2 ] See contrelenfermement.noblogs.org

[ 3 ] 3. See http://www.cglpl.fr

[ 4 ] Michel Foucault, "Viewpoint" in Writings and Sayings III, Gallimard, 1994, p. 93-94.