Pour une vision globale de la prison

Abstract

The penalty of deprivation of liberty now dominates in most parts of the world, even in countries where the death penalty exists. The question therefore arises as to the reasons for its success and the ways in which it has spread, which has given rise to much debate in the social sciences, particularly (but not only) about the Foucauldian model. Today, considering prison as a “Western” invention is thus becoming increasingly problematic. However, the often geographically-limited nature of the research carried out and the crying lack of synthetic studies make it difficult to assess the relevance of the idea of a “global” birth of the prison before the 19th century. This article and, beyond that, the issue itself, therefore examine the possibilities and the difficulties of a global approach, both historical and spatial, to prison.

Keywords

• colonization
• confinement
• prisons
• global history
• diffusion
• connected history