salaried prisoners favor work at the Châteauroux penitentiary center

Only a few corridors separate the passageways and the cells from the huge hangar where the workshops are located. The main warden of the Châteauroux prison center (Indre) opens the large barred door with his keys and we find ourselves in an environment that bears little resemblance to a place of deprivation of liberty. 41% of the prison inmates work here, from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. In in the first workspace, a dozen men cut twigs into small pieces of a few centimeters amidst the noise of pruning shears. “Here, the prisoners make these little straw mats that we find under the goat cheese log that we buy at the supermarket, describes Ophélie Lhermitte, head of workshops for the prison administration. It’s not just decoration, it’s in the AOP specifications for better ripening”. She is the only uniformed person in the room. For the rest, it feels like an ordinary factory.

>> Prison employment contract: “We must change the image of the prison” to encourage companies, according to the International Observatory of Prisons

A little further on, two men are packing spools of sewing thread. Behind a high wall, the noise of the grinder drowns out the other sounds, prisoners shaping car parts. Just nearby, others are preparing orders for the electronics company Legrand. “These are switches that are producedcomments Ophelie Lhermitte. The pieces are assembled like a puzzle according to a well-ordered process, then the switches are packaged and sent back to the company, which sends us very few pieces. Proof that inmates are compliant and work well.”

Anthony, 31, operates the quality control of various products manufactured here. Imprisoned four years ago, he rose in rank to now assist the foreman, who himself is not an inmate. Anthony could not imagine living in prison without working. He spent six months in idleness before entering the workshops and it is a difficult memory for him. “I need to be in the same structured rhythm as my relatives who live outside, he confides. I need to get up in the morning, to have an activity. Thanks to the work, my days in prison pass more quickly. If I had to stay in the cell all the time watching TV or playing checkers with my cellmate, I would go crazy. I would cogitate, I would ruminate and my mind would be bad. Here, I resist, I give meaning to my days which pass more quickly.”

Without work, the time outside the cell sometimes does not exceed an hour a day, the time for the walk. The other advantage of work in prison, which the employed prisoners in Châteauroux, as elsewhere, are aware of, is that work, along with good conduct, is one of the major criteria for obtaining a reduction in sentence. A prisoner who works will often be better seen by the sentence enforcement judge.

Compensation for victims deducted from wages

These prisoners obviously ask to sign contracts and come to the workshops, because this also allows them to build up a small nest egg each month, even if they earn less than a worker who would produce the same thing on a line outside. from jail. This is what can seduce, moreover, a company: access to a less expensive workforce. This is the meaning of the invitation launched by Éric Dupond-Moretti to CAC40 bosses, including those of the Accor, Carrefour, Auchan and Adecco groups, as well as to the president of Medef, Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux: they have an appointment you in prison Tuesday, April 4, in Bois-d’Arcy (Yvelines). The Minister of Justice wants to encourage them to make prisoners work.

Thanks to the law of 1^er May 2022, the salaries of prisoners were increased, but remain at 45% of the minimum wage. Their social rights have been strengthened with the creation of real health insurance and unemployment insurance, with a pension system, but still no paid holidays or union rights.

At the Châteauroux prison’s textile workshop, Karim, 44, contributes, among other things, to the manufacture of spectacle cases, photo booth curtains and sheets. “I am, like many inmates, a heavy smoker. Without the money I get from work, I would be dependent on other inmates to give me cigarettes. You can imagine the tensions that can create! The other solution would be to ask my wife for money. But outside, with inflation, our two children to raise, she has other things to do than save money for me. It would really bother me if I had to ask her for money.” THE traditional social security contributions, compensation for victims, but also the lawyer’s fees that convicted prisoners must pay are deducted from gross salaries in prison.

“I get about 400 euros each month for 6 hours of work a day. It’s not huge, but that’s already it.”

Karim, employed prisoner in the textile workshop of Châteauroux prison

at franceinfo

Representatives of the France Victimes association will also be present with the sixty bosses invited to the Bois-d’Arcy prison, because the victims also have an interest in the development of work in prison: developing it also means diversifying it. . If, in Châteauroux, it is handling jobs that predominate, trained prisoners have recently been doing computer coding at Melun prison. At Douai prison, a bakery starts up every morning. In Nantes, there is a telephone tray and, in Beaumettes, in Marseille, a restaurant (Les Beaux Mets) which has become renowned in the city.

Participate in the fight against recidivism

Whatever the nature of the job entrusted to an inmate, the benefits observed seem to be the same. “The main interest is to employ a labor force which, very often, has never known the job market before arriving here. Many take out their first payslipsindicates Artémis Mandereau of the Agency for work of general interest and the professional integration of people under judicial control (Atigip). Our goal is to support them technically by teaching them gestures and know-how. The support is also human: they are taught to respect schedules, customer specifications, rates, objectives. They must integrate respect for colleagues, group cohesion, must learn to show initiative. And in all of this, the objective is to value them as people. They arrive in prison for various reasons, but here, that is not our subject. The subject is rehabilitation. Some have the progress made here validated at the end of their sentence in the form of validation of acquired experience. It can be very valuable for them on the way out.”

Artémis Mandereau explains that it is quite rare to see a salaried prisoner being released and later returning to prison. Work in prison would therefore be an effective tool in the fight against recidivism. According to prison officials, it is very rare to see a fight break out in the workshops. Only one was identified last year. “It’s a place where, clearly, the atmosphere is not the same as elsewhere in the establishment. Incidents hardly exist there. Inmates who work together develop bonds of camaraderie, learn to get to know each other and get along better overall”notes Ophélie Lhermitte, head of the work area for the prison administration at Châteauroux prison.

Interesting flexibility for bosses

These words of prisoners and these comments of professionals suggest that work in prison would be the solution to many problems. However, obstacles prevent its development. Companies are reluctant to entrust part of their production to perpetrators of crimes or misdemeanors, with the fear that the rigor will not be the same as with outside production. The bosses are also unaware of the flexibility represented by work in prison with fixed-term contracts available very quickly. These bosses are also unaware that there are facilities, the penitentiary taking charge of part of the administrative management. Finally, the goods produced behind bars are by definition 100% “made in France”, a sales argument proven in recent years.

>> Reading in prison, the great escape thanks to associations like “Reading to get out”

Lynda Boudjema, director of the Châteauroux prison, like many other heads of prison establishments in France, deplores the fact that many inmates still have to be denied access to work. It seeks and hopes to develop new cooperation with companies in its sector. “ We still have empty spaces in the hangar, untapped capacities, she regrets. Work in prison is misunderstood, wrongly. Bosses should not hesitate to contact us. We will gladly open the doors of the establishment to them, to show them our workshops and show them our machines. This can make sense for a business. Admittedly, the detainees have committed crimes or misdemeanors and are excluded for a time from the rest of society, but these are people who are destined to return among all of us tomorrow or the day after. When we make this observation, we can say to ourselves that to offer a job, to put a person who is in the process of serving his sentence back on track, is to participate in the fight against recidivism, it is to fight against delinquency. And that, I am convinced, is everyone’s responsibility. The audacious director even dared, a few months ago, to get a few prisoners out to work for a week in the vineyards, for the harvest.