ABSTRACT
This chapter states that while public and scientific debates about the process of jihadist radicalization tend in recent years to focus on prisons as crucial fields of encounters between the potential radicals and the ideological narratives of jihad, only a few researchers developed a theoretical effort to define how prison radicalization could take place within the individual and collective processes of prisonization. The contribution of a Convict Criminology approach would be highly significant in analyzing how the lived experiences of deprivation and the situated dynamics of cultural importation could interact with the possible configurations of a religious (and ideological) turning point within walls. What Convict Criminology and critical sociology of prison have identified as important elements to analyze institutional adaptations, strategies of resistance, subcultural affiliation, forms of support, and relations with staff members is often marginal with reference to the contemporary sociological attempt to highlight the prison role in such process. The chapter will discuss this theoretical and empirical paradox, giving specific attention to the interpretation of criminal careers and biographical reconstructions of the jihadists who experienced prison.
