A Political Category Subjected to a Legal Test: Legal Confinement in the First Perben Law

This study shows how political communication can interfere with law production. During the 2002 presidential elections in France, political actors promised to create “closed centers” for young repeat offenders. However, confinement in the French legal system implies strict legal conditions with procedural guarantees for delinquents. After the elections, because the term “closed” had become so popular with opinion polls and media studies, legal professionals preparing the first Perben Law had to find a new legal meaning for this term. They proposed a new category, “legal confinement,” to symbolize confinement while respecting the French constitution.