ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of negotiation in the triggering of criminal proceedings, a stage hindered by competing informal mediations that take place in particular within gendarmeries and police stations. The second part considers placement in pre-trial detention, which illustrates the relations of domination in force and an instrumental use of the law that is reinforced by the context of reform. Examining the use of pre-trial detention invites us, first of all, to see criminal justice as a way of regulating social relations. In Guinea, as elsewhere, the lower classes are over-represented in pre-trial detention, making it a strong marker of relations of social domination. The poorest and most isolated prisoners therefore have a higher chance of being held in pre-trial detention, and for longer periods. Examining pre-trial detention in the Guinean legal system reveals the variation in the application of penal norms and sharply reflects the relations of socio-economic domination within the country.
