A Justice System in the Service of Injustice

A familiar form of control for women

Ever since I was young, I have been taught to fear authority. At home, my mother would threaten to report everything to my father. And on the street, my father would point to any police officer on the street and warn us: “Better behave, or else I'll tell him!" Neither looked to themselves as authorities, instead looking to sources of more indisputable power further up the hierarchy.

With fear as their instrument, everyone was always trying to control me. My submissive mother passed on the idea that men always have the final word. My father, aware of the limits of his own power, relied on the authority of the police. The chain of oppression was thus perpetuated, reinforced by the constant threat of a superior authority.

Later, as I grew older and emerged as a feminist, I came to understand that confinement in fact begins well before imprisonment: in our homes, schools, and streets. From the time they are girls, women are subjected to control via the denial of their access to public space and basic rights.

In a patriarchal context, the first "jailer" is the patriarch, the male authority figure who imposes his domination in the name of a familial or moral order. In the judicial system, this same logic of control is applied by the state and authorities that guarantee the status quo. These two systems—family and prison—have the same objective: to discipline, subdue, and punish.

Much like colonization, the prison system is a tool of domination that primarily targets those who are already the most oppressed.

Injustice at the Intersection of Colonialism and Prison

Who imprisons whom, and in the name of what justice?

Nowhere is this clearer than in Algeria’s history. During the War of Liberation, hundreds of mujahideen – freedom fighters – were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and sentenced to death by the French colonial "justice" system, which considered their acts of resistance as terrorism. They were tried and punished as criminals by a system that refused to recognize their political struggle. Djamila Bouhired, Zohra Drif, and Louisette Ighilahriz were all subjected to brutal repression, exemplifying the fate reserved for all women who were committed to opposing colonial rule.

Djamila Boupacha was the victim of gang rape and torture perpetrated by the French colonial army. Thanks to Gisèle Halimi and Simone de Beauvoir, her case was made public, exposing the use of sexual violence as a weapon of incarceration and colonial domination. Her story shows the extent to which the bodies of imprisoned women become battlefields where multiple forms of oppression are exerted and overlap.

Yet, following independence in 1962, these same women were transformed into national heroines. Those who only yesterday were judged as criminals suddenly became glorified figures. This reversal reveals a fundamental truth: justice is neither neutral nor universal. It is a political and ideological construct that serves the dominant power. This does not mean, however, that a newly independent system would prevent the imprisonment and punishment of women. In Algeria, as elsewhere, women continue to be incarcerated, this time in the name of a "national" order. It is crucial to ask why a system that is supposed to be free and liberating still perpetuates the logic of domination and injustice.

The answer lies in analyzing other systems of domination that are intertwined with a legacy of colonialism, such as patriarchy, capitalism, or state racism. Thinkers such as Angela Davis and bell hooks have examined how racial, class, and gender discrimination are all interconnected within larger systems of repression. In Iran, for instance, the instrumentalization of justice serves to control women's bodies and stifle resistance. We cannot simply accept the argument that incarceration is legitimate because it punishes crime. We must dig deeper. asking: who defines what is and is not a crime? Who decides who should be punished and by what system? Why do exploitation, classist, sexist, and racial domination escape all punishment, while theft is criminalized?

In an unequal society, the prison targets the most vulnerable subjects, perpetuating forms of patriarchal and social control, as well as socioeconomic and colonial domination. It even imprisons women who dare to defend themselves against their attackers.

Among the most disadvantaged, women prisoners in Algeria (1.7% of the prison population) are particularly vulnerable and exposed to recidivism. Deprived of economic and social capital, they are subjected to a justice system that claims to correct them, but in actual fact only punishes them. As Angela Davis explains in Are Prisons Obsolete?, modern prisons perpetuate slavery and colonial systems, punishing the marginalized to protect the powerful.

For Transformative and Collective Justice

We urgently need to rethink how we pursue justice beyond mere punishment. This is not to say that we ignore crimes or abolish all responsibility, but rather that we need to understand why some groups are systematically criminalized while others escape punishment. We must put forth a process of transformative justice based on the recognition of collective responsibility, access to fundamental rights, and the questioning of systemic inequalities.

Angela Davis argues that prison does not resolve but rather perpetuates violence. Personally, I believe that feminist and decolonial justice must recognize that most criminal convictions are the product of a system that ignores other "systemic crimes": poverty, exclusion, and the lack of social protection. Rather than locking up the most vulnerable and marginalized, we should address the roots of injustice.

I don’t seek to discourage victims from filing complaints, even in a system with no alternative, nor to minimize the seriousness of the crimes. Rather, my intention is to highlight those truly responsible for social injustices and denounce a system that keeps us under domination while maintaining the illusion of unattainable justice.

Real justice can only emerge by breaking free of the logic inherited from colonial oppression, sexist domination, patriarchal control, and capitalist exploitation. As long as prison remains a tool of discipline and the legitimization of state power, it will perpetuate these systems of oppression. We must imagine collective alternatives, where reparation and transformation take precedence over punishment—where protecting women before they are murdered would finally become a priority, rather than debating a death penalty that has never brought a victim of femicide back to life.

The views expressed in this article are not necessarily those of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.