Book Review: Prison worlds: An ethnography of the carceral condition by D. Fassin
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1057567719842658 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Fassin, D. (2017).
Prison worlds: An ethnography of the carceral condition. Cambridge, England: Polity Press. 382 pp. $28.95, ISBN
978-1509-507-559.
Reviewed by: Deborah H. Drake, The Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
DOI: 10.1177/1057567719842658
In Prison Worlds, Didier Fassin focuses the ethnographic lens on a short-stay prison in France. He
traces the prisoner journey through the criminal justice system, from induction to release. He includes
analysis of French lawmaking, criminal justice policy, policing practices, and courtroom decision-
making. Fassin’s 4-year field study and wider considerations of penal matters are woven into pro-
logue, introduction, 11 substantive chapters, conclusion, and epilogue. It is a long read, but the nar-
rative style and detailed descriptions of individual lives create a momentum for the reader that carries
through to the interconnections made with existing theoretical work and criminal justice policy. His
aim, he states, is to situate his work “in a broader reflection on the metamorphoses of the meaning of
punishment”(p. 29).
Focusing on penal problems in France, as this book does, offers a welcome addition to the annals
of prison and criminal justice scholarship. This contribution notwithstanding, many of the substan-
tive points raised are relevant to most prison and penal systems around the world. In particular,
Fassin’s work exposes the experiences of prisoners and the penal landscape in ways that demonstrate
that each element is more than the sum of its parts. In the acknowledgments, Fassin explains that
prisoners were generous with their time and eager to talk. He reveals that he had the sense that
their interest seemed to go beyond the expectation of just being heard. He states that what “was man-
ifested was the feeling that they were recognized as something other than just inmates”(p. xix). In
this sentence, Fassin begins to make the case for the importance of an ethnographic approach to
understanding prison worlds.
Fassin brings the practice and value of ethnography to life throughout the book. For example, in
Chapter 7, Fassin explores various circumstances in which conflicts tended to erupt. His analyses
focus on prison visits, access to exercise, and showers. Using detailed examples, Fassin hones in
on the “hot spots”of the inner life of prisons while explaining exactly why they are “hot.”He
takes a broad view perspective, accounting for many factors, perspectives, and foregoing circum-
stances. Despite the obviousness of the reasons behind particular incidents erupting, Fassin notes
that the staff often describe incidents as unpredictable. However, his step-by-step observations
show them to be entirely foreseeable. Fassin writes:
What they [the staff] see as unexpected is in fact simply the intervention of a minor event that destabilizes
a configuration in which all the elements were already in place, merely awaiting a spark that will lead to an
explosion of violence. (pp. 181, 182).
Throughout the book, one gets the sense that Fassin is gently taking the reader by the hand and asking
them to consider, for themselves, the fairness or “justice”in-built into the machinations of the crim-
inal justice system. Shifting from the micro to the macro, he asks the reader what we are to make of
each situation. He examines the overrepresentation of Black and Asian Minority Ethnic populations
and then demonstrates, in detail, how discriminatory practices seem to play themselves out (Chapter
2). He considers the warping of the meanings of time and space and the sensory experiences of light
and sound (Chapter 4). He provides a particularly compelling account of the social life of objects in
prison (Chapter 5). Here, he describes the peephole mechanisms in cell doors, the presence of mobile
phones in prisons (which are restricted items), and the currency of tobacco. Through the analysis of
the life of these objects, he illuminates not just their social life but also their economic and political
Book Reviews 113
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