“He Ended up Like a Merguez Sausage”. Trauma in a French High Security Prison

Abstract

Prison officers’(PO) trauma has been addressed by the literature, but little is known about their experience in the French context. As part of a broader study, we were asked to document the experience of the correctional staff working in a historical high security prison set in a 900-year-old former monastery. Using appreciative inquiry, we conducted 27 interviews and found that most of the interviewees had been repeatedly subjected to trauma. There was also a patent intergenerational transmission of trauma, which both increased its impact and served as a coping mechanism. We additionally found that rurality further helped POs cope with trauma by facilitating a cut-off between prison and their normal life in the form of sports or rural activities.