Twenty bosses and representatives of professional unions are invited Thursday, September 1, not in Bercy but Place Vendôme, at the Ministry of Justice. A meeting planned long before the controversy over the images of inmates going karting at Fresnes prison. Eric Dupond-Moretti wishes to convince these bosses that it is necessary to develop work in prison, a real factor according to him for reintegration for prisoners, and with an interest also for their companies, even if the idea of hiring in prison can be scary a priori.
To work is to leave the cell, to have a social life. In French prisons, moreover, there are more prisoners who would like to work than prisoners who can. For 20 years, and the economic crisis has had something to do with it, work has become scarce in detention centers… despite a slight improvement over the past four years.
Today, 32% of prisoners work. The majority are employees of the general service, that is to say that they work for the proper functioning of the establishment in which they are imprisoned: cleaning, preparation, distribution of meals.
But 10,000 inmates work for outside companies – there are 500 today – which have workshops within the prison establishments. If Eric Dupond-Moretti is going to visit a computer coding workshop at the Melun prison center on Thursday, most of the jobs offered to prisoners are rather assembly-line type jobs for the manufacture of textile products, furniture, or in the food industry, onion peeling for example.
Spontaneously the bosses do not think of producing in prison, fearing the result and the repercussions in terms of image. For the Keeper of the Seals, it is necessary to reverse this way of thinking and to say that for a business leader it is a way of producing locally, of participating in reintegration, and of becoming an actor in the fight against recidivism. Eric Dupond Moretti created a label: “Peps”, i.e. “Produced in prison” and created the work-prison.fr site, appointed a prison administration executive by region to actively canvass those responsible for society. The ministry ensures that the plans for future prisons include spaces reserved for workshops and storage areas.
Today, he will repeat to them during the appointment at the Chancellery the advantages that this implies according to him: the contracts, payslips and all the administrative procedures managed directly by the State, the provision of premises, reductions in employer contributions. It is less highlighted but it must also be said that in salary an inmate employee costs less: until recently there was no minimum and few rules. Since a law came into force on May 1, 2022, contracts, frameworks exist and in particular a minimum wage set at 45% of the minimum wage.
Pierre Guillet, boss of Hesion, an SME of about thirty employees which manufactures electronic gas detectors, today employs two employees in a workshop in the prison of Poissy in the Yvelines. According to this militant boss, also involved in the Movement of Christian Entrepreneurs and Leaders (EDC), this adventure which has lasted for more than three years is “interesting but not simple, not idyllic”. He adds : “The prison administration is a very cumbersome administration. The means of access to the workshops located in detention are complicated. It sometimes takes an hour to enter and an hour to leave. You must therefore be very motivated and more animated by a willingness to help only through a search for profitability”.