Dans le contexte français d'ouverture du monde pénitentiaire et de développement des partenariats associatifs, les premiers « accueils des familles » voient le jour au cours des années 1980. Des bénévoles prennent l'initiative d'améliorer les conditions de visite au parloir en proposant un accueil pour les proches des personnes détenues. Depuis 2010, sollicitée par le principe d'« humanisation » des prisons prôné par les Règles Pénitentiaires Européennes, l'administration prend ce service d'accueil à sa charge en le délégant à des sociétés prestataires dans les établissements à « gestion mixte », publique et privée, sans pour autant exclure les associations.À la croisée de l'anthropologie et de la sociologie, à travers une ethnographie de longue durée menée au sein de lieux périphériques du domaine carcéral, la thèse interroge les politiques institutionnelles et les pratiques participatives des associations. Au prisme de leurs différentes matrices - compassionnelle, gestionnaire et sécuritaire - cette recherche analyse les processus de politisation et de fabrication symbolique des divers sujets (collectifs et individuels) impliqués. Elle étudie également les enjeux sociaux relevant de la « carcéralisation » d'espaces publics et de la « publicisation » d'espaces carcéraux. / In the French context of prison's opening up and developing partnerships with associations, first “Families Welcome” began in the 1980's. Volunteers take the initiative to create reception facilities for inmates' relatives when they come to the prison visiting room. Since 2010, in order to respect European Prison Rules, penitentiary administration handed over this service to the joint management of private and public companies, without excluding associations.Between anthropology and sociology, through long-term ethnography within this prison's periphery, this thesis raises questions about institutional practices and participatory dimension of associations. Through several models – compassion, management, and security – this research analyses the politicisation process and symbolic construction of the different subjects implicated (collective and individual). It also studies social issues relevant to the “carceralisation”, of public places and the publicity of prison facilities.

With the expansion of the use of private prisons and detention centres worldwide and the increasing involvement of private actors in the provision of custodial services, this doctoral thesis considers life inside two private prisons in England. Using theoretically informed ethnography it evaluates the effect of responsibility on men imprisoned in two private prisons in England. Firstly, it briefly reviews the background and development of prison privatisation in England and Wales and considers the role and place of private prisons as part of a wider neo-liberal shift. Secondly, using qualitative data gathered inside two private prisons, it evaluates if these prisons, through their regimes, are trying to create responsible self-governing prisoners. The thesis reviews both, how regimes and practices in place in these two prisons attempt to forge responsible prisoners, and how individual men and groups of prisoners experience, feel about, cope with and assimilate penal messages of self-governance and responsibility. Finally, it questions both the impact of responsible prisoners for prisons and the impact of responsibility on prisoners and argues that, whilst there is a benefit to fostering environments in which prisoners are enabled to become responsible and self-governing, a careful balance must be maintained, as for some men the responsibility itself becomes characteristic of the "pain of imprisonment".

Prison privatization is a hotly debated topic in the United States that has its place in the political agendas of both political parties and generates opinion by various public interest groups. United States has the biggest prison population in the world caused by the harsh sentencing policies that were implemented in the 1980s. California has had the largest criminal justice system in the nation until it was very recently surpassed by Texas. The state of California has been fighting with the overcrowding crisis for three decades. It began contracting out with private prison companies for the management of its prisons in hope it would ease the situation in state prison system that operated at double of its designed capacity. This thesis is a case study that concerns itself with the prison privatization in the state of California. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate whether contracting with private prisons helped California to solve its overcrowding crisis and whether privately-run prison are a good choice that benefits California society. This goal will be achieved by evaluating existing experience with the private prisons in California's context.