the alarming circulation of the virus in prison

In France, there are 188 penal establishments in which nearly 70,000 people are detained. However, in these French establishments, only 60,775 places are operational while the number of prisoners continues to grow. Indeed, while they were only 62,980 in December 2020, their number jumped 11.13% over one year, details Wednesday, December 29 the journalist of France Televisions Aurélie Schiller.

And to make matters worse for this prison overcrowding, the Covid-19 has managed to pass through the doors of places of deprivation of liberty. Thus, 370 contaminations were recorded among the detainees and 448 among the staff. The latest cluster to date, that of Perpignan prison (Pyrénées-Orientales) where 85 inmates and 15 staff members were detected positive for the coronavirus. “We’re supposed to be a big country, a big nation“, deplores on franceinfo Wednesday evening Dominique Simonnot, general controller of places of deprivation of liberty, who also underlines:”We have identified 112 cases of Covid-19 as of November 25, we have gone to 444 today“.