In his 2022 activity report, Dominique Simonnot draws up a detailed assessment of the state of French prison establishments.
“There is no prison where no rights are violated.” The report, without concession, is drawn up by Dominique Simonnot, the General Controller of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL), in its 2022 activity report, published Thursday, May 11. To reach this conclusion, the independent administrative authority visited ten prisons, fifteen remand centers, two detention centers and one prison for minors during the year. On the occasion of this annual report, the Comptroller General warns about the living conditions of detainees and their “harmful consequences”.
Increasing prison overcrowding
“The most striking point of the visits is obviously the overcrowding”, regrets the CGLPL. None of the visits carried out in 2022 allowed “to see an occupancy rate of less than 135% and three establishments had rates above 200% at the time of the visit”, detail the report. This scourge particularly affects remand prisons, intended to receive prisoners sentenced to the shortest sentences and defendants awaiting trial, with an average occupancy rate of 141% in January 2023.
The observation is not new: the number of detainees incarcerated has always been greater than the number of places available over the period 1990-2023, with the exception of 2001. MBut the phenomenon intensifies. In January 2020, the CGLPL listed 70,651 detainees. Three years later, they are 73,080 as of April 1. Gold, “During this period, the overall number of prison places in France remained approximately stable, between 60,500 and 61,000 places”, states the report.
This record overpopulation is inflicting “prisoners to live three to a cell, 21 hours a day – in less than one square meter of living space per person – to be nibbled by bedbugs, invaded by cockroaches and rats”, says Dominique Simonnot. She compels “2,100 of them sleeping on a mattress on the floor”she points.
“Explosive Situations”
Dominique Simonnot deplore the “harmful consequences” overcrowding on the living and working environment of the people concerned, in particular the violence induced by promiscuity. The report mentions “explosive situations”, contained thanks to the only “resignation of prisoners” and at “professionalism of supervisors”, especially in old and small remand prisons. In newer, larger establishments, “human relations are of lesser quality and dialogue, when it exists, turns regularly in confrontation”.
The institution also notes shortcomings “alarming” in the protection of detainees. More and more of them no longer dare to leave their cells “for fear of violence”. “In one of the establishments visited, the number of detainees confined by fear was counted in dozens, elsewhere the fights become serious and frequent in the yard. The collective showers can also be a place of insecurity”explains the Controller.
When cell exits are possible, they are considered to be too few: the prisoner has two hours of daily walk “in principle offered to all”access to work “parsimonious”, of a teaching that “concerns only a few people” and for too short periods of time, and “rare” activities and visits.
“Dilapidated” premises and impossible renovations
In addition to promiscuity and violence, Dominique Simonnot deplores the dilapidation of the penitentiary establishments visited. The safety of electrical installations is, for example, singled out. “Connections and artisanal heating means are tinkered with, the evacuation routes are cramped and have only been validated for the workforce theory of an establishment”details the administrative authority, which draws up an unequivocal assessment: the risks of fire are increased and the means of fighting the fire reduced.
For lack of sufficient ventilation, mold settles and, for lack of insulation, the temperature rises in the cells. As for the intimacy of detainees, it is considered “emphasis that this may amount to genuinely undignified treatment”. Renovations are often considered impossible to carry out, due to prison overcrowding.
“Prison efficiency” in question
In addition to being difficult for the detainees to live with, the situations reported are considered by the Controller to be devoid of“prison efficiency”. Clearly, they would not allow a good reintegration. Incarceration then becomes a “factor in breaking social ties of any kind” And “can only lead to more precariousness“, she assures.
Finally, the CGLPL questions the amounts committed for security, for periods of incarceration of a few weeks, in comparison with the “social benefit” that it is possible to draw from these short sentences or these pre-trial detentions “who play a major role in the situation of overcrowding in prisons”.
Urgent recommendations for two establishments
Lack of guards, insufficient food, unsuitable visiting rooms, difficulties in accessing care, excessive use of searches, poor preparation for release… No prison establishment visited in 2022 is concerned by “all of these weaknesses”, tempers the Comptroller, with the exception of two, for which the administrative authority has issued urgent recommendations.
Thus, at the Bordeaux-Gradignan prison, Dominique Simonnot observed “a significant number of malfunctions lead toresulting from serious attacks on the dignity and fundamental rights of detainees whose living conditions are particularly unworthy”. As of June 1, 2022, 864 detainees were crammed there, for 434 places. A similar observation was made at the penitentiary center of Bois-d’Arcy, in the Yvelines.
The “guilty inertia” of the State called into question
In this report, Dominique Simonnot also curries “guilty inertia” of the executive in the face of this record prison overcrowding. “Inertia, definition: lack of activity, energy. State of what does not move or moves little. Synonyms: apathy, immobility, inaction, ease”she attacks in the foreword of the document. “Inertia is a wall against which the incessant alerts of the CGLPL on the deplorable state of the places it visits come up against”she laments.
“Despite insistent steps (…), the public authorities do not seem determined to change the state of the law”, regrets the general controller of places of deprivation of liberty. She throws the “solution put forward by the State” to combat the scourge of prison overcrowding, namely the construction of 15,000 new prison places by 2027. A “famous promise smelling rancid, since these 15,000 places were already announced in 2017 for 2022” and have been “very modestly reduced, to 2,000 at the end of 2021”accuses the Comptroller General.