At a time of socio-ecosystemic upheavals in the Anthropocene, the prison emerges as a privileged observatory of the tensions running through our societies. Long conceived as a mere instrument of punishment, it has, since Michel Foucault, been understood as a political apparatus in which surveillance, discipline, and the production of subjectivities are exercised. But what becomes of this enclosed space when global warming weakens its infrastructure, exacerbates vulnerabilities, and redefines the very conditions of life under constraint?
Hélène Nogues-Brunet examines how the climate crisis is reshaping the entire system of incarceration. How do prison staff perceive the evolution of their role, caught between security demands, human responsibility, and new ecological constraints? In light of the ethical legacy of Simone Veil and contemporary analyses of carceral power, this work shows that the quality of confinement remains a major indicator of democratic maturity. To think about prison today is to think about the other in their alterity, and society as a whole through its margins—but also to prepare our institutions for the challenges of the climate century.
Patrick FRÉMEAUX

A life sciences engineer, Hélène Nogues-Brunet began her career in applied research in human health. Committed as an elected official to issues of citizenship and ecological transition, she has developed expertise at the intersection of public action and systemic transformation. Graduating in 2025 with a Master of Science in Strategy & Design for the Anthropocene, she has deepened her engagement with the thought of Bruno Latour and drawn on the conceptual and methodological framework of ecological redirection, analyzing the habitability of our environments, the future of our infrastructures, and the era of the Anthropocene.

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