The phenomenon is mainly explained by the increase in the length of detention. It has persisted for years and is worrying lawyers in the run-up to the Paris Olympic Games.
A new record broken. As of April 1, France had 77,450 prisoners, according to figures published Tuesday April 30 by the Ministry of Justice. According to these statistics, 3,307 prisoners are forced to sleep on a mattress placed on the floor of their cell. Among those incarcerated, 20,438 are defendants awaiting trial.
It is in remand centers – where young men, on remand or sentenced to sentences not exceeding two years, are mainly incarcerated – that the phenomenon is most marked. In April, prison density reached or even exceeded 200% in 17 establishments or neighborhoods. With 321 detained for 114 places, i.e. a prison density of 281.6%, The most overcrowded establishment in France is the Majicavo penitentiary center, located north of Mamoudzou, in Mayotte.
Next comes the Carcassonne remand center. Then the Gradignan prison center (Gironde). In this establishment, which is also among the most dilapidated, there are three prisoners per 9 m2 cell. Among supervisors, sick leave is on the rise, reports France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine. The Nîmes remand center is experiencing a similar situation, as are the prison establishments of Gagny (Seine-Saint-Denis)Fresnes (Val-de-Marne), Tulle (Corrèze), Foix (Ariège) and even Perpignan.
A number of prisoners that continues to increase
In a letter sent on April 8, lawyers from Ile-de-France questioned the Minister of Justice about this “revolting promiscuity”. They alert Eric Dupond-Moretti about the risks of “suicides”, “violence” or even “widespread mutiny”, “worsened by the possibility of a heatwave in the heart of summer”. The problem should not improve during the Paris Olympic Games, because the legal world expects more delinquency and therefore more incarcerations. For these lawyers, it is therefore necessary “put an end to this chronic prison overcrowding”Who “has increased uninterruptedly for more than 20 years”.
“The curve in the number of prisoners is rising: at the beginning of the 1980s, there was a surge”, confirms Ivan Gombert, national secretary of FO-Direction, the union of prison service directors. To describe this phenomenon, Annie Kensey, demographer and associated researcher at the Center for Sociological Research on Law and Penal Institutions, does not hesitate to speak “of prison inflation”.
Since 1990, the trend has only been reversed twice. First, when imprisonments for short sentences fell drastically at the turn of the 2000s. “The average length of detention is increasing at the same time as incarcerations are decreasing”analyzes Annie Kensey at the time. The other reason comes from the decision to grant two collective presidential pardons in 1999. Since 1988, between 3,000 and 4,000 detainees were pardoned for July 14. Today, this principle, which played a role as a relief for overcrowded penitentiary establishments, no longer exists: in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy, just elected president, removed the pardon decree, breaking with a tradition inherited from the monarchy. .
It is the health context linked to the Covid-19 epidemic which explains the second drop in the number of prisoners, measured in January 2021. In order to reduce clusters in prison, an early release of two months for people at the end of their penalty is decreed. At the same time, judicial activity is slowing down, which limits arrivals in detention. Annie Kensey observed a drop of 13,000 inmates during this period: 6,500 released early and 6,500 who did not enter. At the same time, the researcher notices a boomerang effect, “since we condemned these people afterwards”.
Longer and longer sentences
Since the pandemic, the demographer has noted that the number of people entering prison has stabilized, around 25,000 people per quarter. Prison overcrowding is therefore not caused, as may have happened in the past, by increased recourse to incarceration. “At the moment, prison inflation is only linked to longer detention periodsexplains Annie Kensey. Over the last two years, the number of people sentenced to less than six months has decreased, but everything else has increased, particularly sentences of one to two years.”
“Judges give longer sentences to make sure the person goes to prison.”
Annie Kensey, demographer and researcherat franceinfo
The researcher sees “side effects” of the justice programming and reform law promulgated in 2019, which makes the modification of the sentence compulsory when it is less than or equal to six months, but prohibits it beyond one year of imprisonment. Thus, the average length of detention went from 8.5 months to almost 12 months in 2020.
“We created new sentence adjustments, but we filled the prisons”, points out Ivan Gombert. For the trade unionist, when a person is sentenced to a suspended sentence without being incarcerated, they “does not see the constraint”. It is only after having multiplied “small crimes” that she passes “through the prison box.” “As a result, we end up with longer sentences”, he laments. A trend that contrasts with some of our European neighbors: in 2021, the average length of detention was 4.5 months in Germany, compared to just over 10 months in France, according to Council of Europe statistics.
A promise to create places to keep
These shorter sentences, Béatrice Brugère, general secretary of Unité-Magistrats FO, would like to see them applied in France. Co-author with Ivan Gombert of a column in Marianne on prison overpopulation, she judges that today, “prison just serves to shelter certain individuals from society for a time.” The Magistrates’ Union shares this observation, without however putting forward the same solutions. Rather, he wishes “give meaning back to pain”with “real socio-educational work”.
Neither home detention under electronic surveillance, nor release under duress as of right, which allows early release at the end of the sentence, currently makes it possible to reduce imprisonment, explains Nelly Bertrand, general secretary of the Synicat de la magistrature. The conditions are also not met to avoid recidivism, on the contrary. The union, classified on the left, goes further: if we want fewer inmates in prisons, we must review the entire prison policy.
For its part, to stem the phenomenon, the Ministry of Justice is banking on the creation of 15,000 new prison places by 2027. This plan, born from a promise by Emmanuel Macron during his first presidential campaign, continues to be implemented by Eric Dupond-Moretti.
“Eric Dupond-Moretti’s objectives are to reduce prison overcrowding, ensure the effectiveness of the criminal response and improve the working conditions of guards as well as detention conditions.”
The Department of Justiceat franceinfo
Between 2017 and 2023, 19 establishments were put into service. Four will be this year. The ministry also ensures that 886 additional places, distributed in several establishments in Ile-de-France, in Caen and Troyes, will be operational at the opening of the Paris Olympics. But in the eyes of the General Controller of places of deprivation of liberty, “the more we build, the more we fill”. Especially since these new prison places cost “horribly expensive”according to Dominique Simonnot.
The Ministry of Justice assures to activate other “levers” and highlights “the diversification of the offer of sentences” and alternatives to incarceration. “Nearly 200,000 people are monitored in an open environment”, he illustrates. The chancellery also takes as an example the increased development of works of general interest (TIG), with the creation of a dedicated national agency and a supply of TIG positions increased to 39,600 in 2023, compared to 26,000 two years earlier. The prison administration is also continuing its “voluntarist policy”which aims to allocate convicted prisoners from remand centers to detention centers, in order to optimize available places.
The concern of European institutions
Insufficient, points out the Court of Auditors. In a report published last fall, she estimated that “the impact” of the “levers” operated by public authorities “has remained limited to date”while recognizing that the causes of this “persistent prison overcrowding” are “complex”. “Certain crimes and misdemeanors are subject to increased repression, such as domestic violence, traffic offenses or violence against the police. The increase in the use of immediate appearances and the maintenance of a high level of pre-trial detention rates reinforce this trend”, analyzes the Court of Auditors. The court further denounces a “form of ‘glass ceiling’ of sentence adjustments” and notes that judges favor “incarceration for a population marked by recidivism and precariousness”.
The problem is of concern beyond our borders: on several occasions, France has been singled out by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for its conditions of detention and for overcrowding in prisons. Proof that the phenomenon does not seem to be reversing, the ECHR mentions, in its decision dating from July 2023, not seeing “no reason to reach a different conclusion”. The Council of Europe also recently expressed its “deep concern” and invited the French authorities to “seriously and quickly examine the idea of introducing a binding national prison regulation mechanism”.
“The difficulty of such a system lies in setting up a numerus clausus. Who can benefit from release from prison? How to decide when several prisoners have the same end date of sentence? This contradicts the principle of individualization of punishment.”, retorts the Ministry of Justice. For the General Controller of places of deprivation of liberty, the government “lack of political courage”. Dominique Simonnot sighs: “I hope we don’t get out of this situation at the cost of tragedy.”