2023-09-14 08:41:58
Two conflicting visions of the problem. When Eric Dupond-Moretti advocates the construction of new prison places to combat prison overcrowding, the prison controller calls for “the inclusion in law” of a system. Overcrowding is an endemic problem in French prisons. As of August 1, France had more than 74,000 prisoners for some 60,000 operational places.
“Beyond the impersonal nature of the statistics, the findings made by the General Controller of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL) from 2012 in his opinion on prison overpopulation and even more so after the end of the health crisis, show that the conditions detention are deteriorating in all their dimensions, at the same time as the working conditions of prison staff,” notes Dominique Simonnot in a notice published Thursday in the Official Journal.
Condemnation by the ECHR
Chronic prison overcrowding earned France a new condemnation from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on July 6. However, deplores the former journalist from Chained Duck, “no national-scale measures have been taken” to stop the phenomenon. “If several recent normative developments have been presented as solutions likely to improve the situation”, the CGLPL says it notes “the ineffectiveness of the measures indirectly intended to reduce prison overcrowding implemented since 2008”.
Thus, “the increase in the number of prison places does not make it possible to reduce prison pressure, and the alternatives to incarceration provided for by law, as well as the new methods of modifying sentences, miss their objective”, she laments.
Dupond-Moretti wants to build new places
If he agrees on the observation of prison overpopulation, the Minister of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti differs on the means to remedy it. “The first solution to combat prison overcrowding is to build new operational prison places,” he wrote in observations attached to the CGLPL opinion.
“A second means of preventing prison overcrowding is to ensure that detention is reserved for situations which require it,” added the Minister of Justice, also pleading for “adjustments” to short sentences or for “adjustments” to short sentences. alternative sentences to incarceration such as home detention under electronic surveillance or community service.
Regulation in law
It is necessary “to put in place a restrictive and ambitious legislative regulatory system”, asks Dominique Simonnot, who has been advocating such a mechanism for several years. “The inclusion in law of a binding prison regulation mechanism, managed locally by all actors in the penal chain under the responsibility of the judicial authority, must make it possible, within a time limit set by law, to reduce overpopulation remand centers and respect the right to individual confinement. As for mattresses placed on the ground, they must be immediately banned,” said the CGLPL.
As of August 1, nearly 2,400 detainees were forced to sleep on a mattress placed on the floor. The opinions and recommendations of the CGLPL, an independent administrative authority responsible for ensuring respect for fundamental rights in prisons, but also psychiatric hospitals, administrative detention centers, closed educational centers and police custody premises, are not binding.
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