This place feared by prisoners, nicknamed the “mitard” or the “dungeon”, “only functions at the cost of serious and numerous attacks on dignity and fundamental rights”, denounces the association.
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The disciplinary system does not work in prison”only at the cost of serious and numerous violations of the fundamental rights of those detained.”, deplores, in a report published Tuesday February 6, the French section of the International Prison Observatory (OIP). Nearly half of the people incarcerated in France in 2022 were the subject of incident reports and led to the imposition of 69,174 disciplinary sanctions, including more than 100,000 days of disciplinary confinement. This place feared by the inmates, nicknamed the “mitard” or the “dungeon”, is “as inhuman as it is counterproductive”denounces the association, thatI advocate its removal.
If there is the possibility of recognizing the judge’s right to control the decisions of the prison administration, it remains, according to the OIP, that “the disciplinary machine continues to grind and even tends to harden, in particular by the creation of new punishable offenses since 2019”.
An endless list of offenses punishable by the miscreant
Alongside serious facts that can be reported (violence, threats, etc.), more trivial behaviors are also punishable, such as clothing deemed inappropriate, a blocked eyepiece, a radio that refuses to turn down the volume. , the OIP is indignant. “The list of offenses subject to disciplinary sanctions is potentially infinite, because in prison anything that is not expressly authorized is prohibited“, underlines the report.
According to the association, which advocates for respect for the rights of prisoners, “suicide attempts [en quartier disciplinaire] are extremely common, the risk of ending one’s life being fifteen times higher than in ordinary detention”. In addition to the elimination of the disciplinary district, the OIP recommends in particular reducing the scope of behavior liable to disciplinary sanctions or guaranteeing “an effective remedy” against the disciplinary sanction before the administrative judge.
