“No national-scale measures have been taken” in almost three years to curb prison overcrowding in France, which continues to break records, deplores the General Controller of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL) in a notice published Thursday July 2 in the Official Journal.
Once again, prison controller Dominique Simonnot calls for “a binding mechanism for prison regulation to be included in the law”, the only one capable of reducing the phenomenon in remand centers, according to her. This mechanism must make it possible to “guarantee respect for the fundamental rights of detained persons, first and foremost the right to individual confinement, respect for their dignity and the protection of their physical and psychological integrity”.
The CGLPL made this proposal in a notice published in September 2023 in the JO. But the Minister of Justice Gérald Darmanin categorically refuses such a mechanism.
According to a recent report, France is, along with Turkey, the Council of Europe country where the situation is the worst. The number of prisoners increased from 73,699 for 60,562 places available on June 1, 2023 to 88,829 for 63,237 places three years later, figures which highlight “the failure of the policy consisting of increasing the number of prison places in order to reduce prison overcrowding”, estimates this independent administrative authority.
The Ministry of Justice plans to open 3,000 additional places in modular prisons, half of which by 2027, while less than a third of the 15,000 additional prison places planned in a national plan launched in 2018 have been delivered.
For the CGLPL, “the increase in reception capacities is systematically accompanied (…) by a parallel, even accelerated, increase in the number of incarcerated people”. “The construction of new establishments cannot constitute a relevant response: given the current rate of increase in overpopulation, it would be appropriate, to absorb it, to put a penitentiary center into service every six weeks.”
“Sentence adjustment mechanisms and alternatives to incarceration, although essential, remain underused or hampered by restrictive implementation conditions,” adds the opinion.
Fresnes and Grenoble, symbols of drift
The CGLPL has also published recommendations on the prison centers of Fresnes (Val-de-Marne) and Grenoble (Isère).
Concerning Fresnes, the authority considers that “no new incarceration should take place within the establishment”, which is extremely dilapidated and unsanitary. It calls on the public authorities to “define a clear real estate strategy for the future of the penitentiary center, including a renovation or reconstruction program commensurate with its observed deterioration”.
The CGLPL is also sounding the alarm on the Grenoble-Varces prison center (Isère), which had already been the subject of an emergency visit and recommendations in July 2023, but where the situation has further deteriorated with an occupancy rate now at 179%. “Prison overcrowding is now extreme in an establishment with deficient human resources,” notes the controller.
She mentions in particular an “exponential” increase in the number of mattresses on the ground, a “degraded operation now affecting the entire command, including management”, or detainees exposed to violence and unsanitary conditions, some forced to “eat with their fingers” for more than two months, due to a lack of available cutlery.
“The seriousness of the situation is such that it violates the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment, and is even likely to infringe the right to life, respectively guaranteed by Articles 3 and 2 of the ECHR,” concludes the controller.
