Anyone observing the prison question in France today cannot but be stricken by the dominant place of facility expansion in prison policy: in 2011, after the launching and/or completion of three successive programs involving the creation of more than 30,000 extra beds (1), the Ministry of Justice announced yet another “new prison construction program.” On the whole, between 1980 and 2014, the number of beds in French prisons tripled, rising from about 20,000 to nearly 60,000. (2) This focusing of political attention and budgetary resources on buildings policy