Between Place Beauvau and Place Vendôme, Gérald Darmanin carried his obsession: the fight against drug trafficking. Newly appointed Minister of Justice, the former Minister of the Interior, announced a salvo of proposals intended to prevent the most experienced drug traffickers from operating from their prison cells. To do this, he wants to generalize the jamming of cell phones and isolate the most dangerous traffickers in detention.
Kim Reuflet, permanent secretary within the Magistrates’ Union, is surprised to “see a minister who, after a week, already has plenty of announcements to make.” “There is a slight lack of humility in relation to the complexity of the problem,” underlines the former president of the SM. “He only made two trips and met few professionals in the field. However, this is what he should have done before proposing things, some of which already exist, supposed to resolve problems that are 20 years old.”
“He knows that time is running out”
When he was at the Interior, Gérald Darmanin set up the famous “clearance” operations, with more than contrasting results. “These are short-term, ineffective actions,” insists Kim Reuflet. The trade unionist recalls that the government to which he belongs is threatened with being censored within a few months. “He knows that time is running out and wants to take visible action with the idea that there is a strong expectation in terms of security. So he makes announcements saying that he is going to be tougher with traffickers, more coercive. No more prison, no more confinement, no more surveillance… But in concrete terms, this is what all his predecessors did,” observes the trade unionist.
The jammers? It is true that many prisoners manage to obtain cell phones behind bars. A problem well identified by the prison administration which has been trying to respond to it for several years by installing jammers in establishments. “But it’s complicated to set up, it’s expensive, and it poses problems for establishments located in cities. Because these devices also jam communications throughout the neighborhood, and the neighbors complain. We then prefer to set up partial jamming, in certain areas of the detention,” indicated to 20 Minuteslast May, a source within the Ministry of Justice, after the escape of Mohamed Amra.
“The places in solitary confinement are already taken”
Gérald Darmanin also wants to isolate the “100 biggest imprisoned drug traffickers, those likely to have contacts outside to continue their criminal activities”, as he indicated to the Parisian. A proposition which, once again, clashes with reality. Samuel Gauthier, national secretary of the penitentiary CGT, notes that “the places in solitary confinement are already all taken, either to protect media prisoners or to accommodate very specific profiles” such as rapists or pedophiles. “They would have to be moved to detention and that would create incidents,” he explains. “Putting them in solitary confinement would not necessarily change much because they would still manage to get a cell phone, thanks to the yoyos”, a wire connecting several cells through the window, allowing prisoners to exchange messages or objects.
“There are already a certain number of traffickers in solitary confinement, that already exists,” adds Kim Reuflet, adding that it is an “extremely strict and harsh regime.” Creating a new one, as the minister indicated, would raise “questions regarding respect for the human person”.
“Safe speech only”
“Isolation can be implemented when necessary. But systematicity as a penal response poses a problem to me. It is necessary to be able to adapt this measure on a case-by-case basis. The prisons are overcrowded, the isolation areas too,” indicates Estelle Carraud, general secretary of SNEPAP-FSU, adding that we “cannot leave someone in solitary confinement for many years, with very specific conditions of detention. This is not how we prepare the exit of these people who, at some point, will have to reintegrate into society.”
Estelle Carraud points out Gérald Darmanin’s “only security discourse”, “intended to respond to far-right ideas”. “What we need are means,” insists the trade unionist. With the very large number of prisoners, our evaluation work is much less effective than if we had decent working conditions. This would allow us to get to know inmates better, to work with them, to see their development, and to provide support. »