La psychiatrie en milieu pénitentiaire : chronique d’une pratique psychiatrique au centre pénitentiaire de Bordeaux-Gradignan

We will start with a presentation of the prison population, followed by a review of aggravating factors for situations, which would be perceived as banal. We are confronted with the interface between, on the one hand, a rigid judicial and penitentiary structure and, on the other hand, according to the type of new inmates, can take many faces both from a clinical and a criminological viewpoint. The fact that new specialized bodies have been added (SMPR) and are still developing (UHSA) confirms the idea that prison cannot accommodate a specific psychopathological sample of our society which is then sent to a further exclusion-generating structure. As a result, prison is increasingly seen, as a factor for repetitive offending that is too often limited to a medical approach. The multiplication of legal texts centred around law-and-order is the expression of the current trend to push health professionals to go beyond their role of care.