France: Islam, a Central Topic of the Research Field Dedicated to Prisons and Religion – A Review of the Literature

Abstract

In recent years, religion in prison has attracted some interest within the social sciences. This field of research was developed in France at the beginning of the 2000s, at the initiative of the British sociologist of religion James Beckford. At first, Islam attracted most of the scholarly attention, before more general work was undertaken in the early 2010s. Nevertheless, the framing imposed by public policy following the terrorist attacks has led to a tightening of the research conducted on religion in prison institutions around what is commonly called radicalisation.