Along the same lines, he believes that psychologists practicing in the prison system must not treat their patient as a criminal, but rather a human being. For this individual must be taken as a whole and in the situation. For instance, the level of danger presented by an individual is a very complex phenomenon, since it is always related to a particular moment and context. "Similarly, depending on the moment and the circumstances in which it manifests, a psychopathology may actually be an appropriate response," explains Jérôme Englebert. “In his book Ethology and Psychiatry, Albert Demaret wrote something disturbing about psychopaths: ‘In times of peace, we lock them up; in times of war, we rely on them and decorate them...’ The point is obviously not to minimise atrocious actions, but to insist on the importance of individualised psychological or psychiatric treatment which views the subject as a human being."

Boards on the windows

By perverting the relationship to time, space, and the body, prisons diminish and sometimes even annihilate prisoners’ emotional life. In the prison environment, emotion is viewed as a disorder that may cause security problems.  Consequently, prisons do everything they can to eliminate emotions, which leads some inmates into emotional impasses since emotions cannot be dissociated from our identity and are critical to our psychological well-being. "Often, inmates share their feelings with other inmates or guards who sometimes become their confidants," says Jérôme Englebert. “However, the richness that characterises heterogeneous emotional experiences in the outside world is lost, and this is detrimental to inmates. In the most extreme cases, emotional destruction engenders a sort of psychological death."

In such circumstances, clinical psychologists cannot just serve as "technicians"; they must strive to enable emotional expression. The theory of prison freedom requires psychologists to orient inmates towards this previously-mentioned profanation, towards creative activities that help nourish their emotional lives and allow access to alternative forms of freedom. For example, the psychologist may encourage their patient to try painting or writing.

Incarceration can lead to significant psychological difficulties. However, individuals react in their own way to the prison environment. Some inmates may turn inward and even become more or less paranoid, while others may become depressed. Still others will adopt what is called a "prison identity". The prison courtyard is a very ritualised space where, as everyone knows, there are territorial leaders who "reign," just like in animal societies. They reign over two areas: sexuality, and the attribution and traffic of goods. When young inmates first arrive, they are advised to stay away from the courtyard. “In order to be accepted in the courtyard and occupy a certain social position in this microcosm, some inmates create a prison identity to the detriment of their true identity," explains Jérôme Englebert. “This manifests in two different ways. Inmates who were weak when they arrived may work out for hours every day in order to bulk up. They transform their bodies to meet the criteria of the group they want to fit into."

When they get out of prison, these inmates are frequently more rooted in delinquency - they have more contacts in the milieu, as well as more "debts" and tasks to accomplish. For those who have taken on the prison identity, can prison life become "real life", by substitution? "The desire for freedom is always the strongest desire," says the ULg psychologist. "All prisoners want to get out. However, I knew an inmate who asked to come back to prison after he was released. When he had his own studio apartment, he even put boards on the windows to look like bars. This person's mental state was pretty fragile, but he wasn't mentally ill."