ABSTRACT
In France today, sport is considered to be a fundamental element of the educational offer in the prison environment. The process of sport education in prison can therefore interfere with the social and disciplinary message of the authorities, making people believe that prison fun takes precedence over paying one's debt to society. The panoptic functions of sport therefore came initially from the second half of the twentieth century from this will to standardise which places sport practice at the centre of the crossroads between the need to punish and that of surveilling. Prison sport takes place under the eyes of the guards and very few other activities take place with the accompaniment of a sport monitor who could follow or propose a particular programme, which could involve, perhaps, educational objectives. Prisoners' sport has remained a lower level activity from which a social miracle cannot be expected.
