The problem with the efficacy of the French incarceration system and its role in the rehabilitation from delinquency questions the manner in which we act and think about living together. It questions the political dimension of a society that wants democracy but remains fearful and demands security. Contrary to the Finnish model, an undeniable success, French intiatives favor reinserting ex-convicts into society, scattered about without any follow-up monitoring. Without a radical change in perspective supported by a global policy change which, like in Finland, gambles on the ideas of cofidence and generosity, laying a foundation in the belief of the value of each, in the self and the other, the fear is that prisons, the dark side of our democratic system, will remain a failure of our lives in collectivity as imagined by the poitics of Marcel Mauss or the ideals which we hope to find in convivialism.