Who Are the Worst of the Worst?

A prison inside prison, the Supermax is an extremely restrictive setting for isolating dangerous prisoners. Those prisoners are identified through rationalized techniques of risk calculation and risk prevention. The empirical research questions this scientific aspect of the “new penology.” Practices of classification – which include cultural images of dangerousness (especially concerning gangs), and the use of isolation as an easy means for managing usual disturbances – do not fit the frame of scientific objectivity. The place of science in the Supermax may not be a symptom of a new approach on crime, but rather a modern expression of exclusion as a precaution.