What is Penitentiary

This chapter examines the relations between French carceral practices and those implemented at different stages of the colonization process in Algeria from the invasion of 1830 to the independence. It breaks down Algerian colonial history into three eras: the military invasion, the settlers' rule, and the war of independence. It demonstrates how the implementation of carceral policies and its various trends (along the axis of reform and punishment) emerged and receded in different periods in France and Algeria, and how these practices in the metropolitan center and the colonial periphery on either side of the Mediterranean influenced one another.