Introduction: Norms and Imprisonment in the Context of Demands for Security

This text introduces a special issue devoted to the tension between security and legalconstraints and aims to question the impact of this tension on the management of confinement. This movement is in fact less an « opening » or a « democratization » of thedeprivation of liberty than a new inflection of its process. The analysis will be developed along four main lines. First the institutional framework of the gradual entry of(human) rights into the field of detention will be considered (genesis of the rules, technical means to support human rights). Secondly, we will focus on the coexistence ofseveral norms originating from legal doctrine or other rationalities. Then we will studythe impact of this new legal framework on the work culture of prison staff and those ofother places of confinement, but also on legal practitioners who are now involved in thisprocess. Finally, we will discuss more generally the influence of this framework on thedaily life of prisons and its effect on the order, always negotiated locally, which governsthe relations between inmates and guards.