Pathways of confinement

The legal constitution of carceral spaces in France's social housing estates

Bibliographic Data

ID3977900
AuthorsJoaquin Perez Villanueva (Gustavus Adolphus College, corresponding author), Joaquín Villanueva (Gustavus Adolphus College)
Year2017
Pages1-21
Publication date2017-05-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial & Cultural Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1464-9365 • E-ISSN: 1470-1197
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14649365.2017.1328526
OpenAlexW2615373452
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited66

This paper analyzes the enactment and evolution of article L.126 of the Code of Construction and Housing (CCH) in France and demonstrates the careful ways lawmakers have redefined 'common areas' in social housing estates as carceral spaces. It argues that such transformation has inserted these areas into a 'carceral continuum' that facilitates the arrest, prosecution and confinement of young people 'hanging out' in 'common areas'. Drawing on the work of legal geographers on the co-constitutive relationship of law and space, and urban and carceral geographers exploring the criminalization of urban space and the extension of the carceral state, the paper illustrates how the pathways of confinement are legally constituted. The legal process documented here seeks to highlight the law's meaning-making capacity and the complex legal practices – by actors and institutions located at multiple scales – which significantly condition urban practices and relationships. The analysis suggests, finally, that law's constitutive power has limits that are brought to the fore by anti-police violence struggles. Pathways of confinement are, thus, fragile networks dependent upon the ongoing enactments, discourses, and practices by lawmakers and law-enforcers

Constitution · Criminalization · Criminology · Political science · Power (physics · Sociology · State (computer science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Law

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