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

Abstract

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.