Overpopulation, denial of care, abusive complete registrations: the rights defender elaborates “an alarming observation” and alert public authorities “serious and repeated violations of rights” suffered by the detainees, in a press release published on Thursday, November 7. The independent administrative authority, responsible for ensuring “respect for rights and freedoms”According to the Constitution, it is said “more and more seized” by the inmates. Its 150 delegates present in French prisons processed 7,878 cases in 2023.
“Overpopulation leads to an attack on dignity” detained, the institution estimates. “There have never been so many people in prison”underlines, with 79,631 prisoners in France on 1Ahem October according to the prison administration. Prison density, 127.9% on average, “It reaches 200% in certain establishments”. Numbers “extremely worrying” while the facilities are “sometimes dilapidated and dilapidated”in some cases “Rodent and bedbug infestations”.
This saturation of prisons aggravates the problems related to “lack of personnel”says human rights defender Claire Hédon. In particular health services, “dated”WHO “You cannot provide care to all detainees”. Education, training, justice: overpopulation “leads to the failure of all public services that prisoners should be able to access”.
Call “for urgent and broad actions”
Therefore, the institution asks public authorities “urgent and large-scale actions” : firstly, a more frequent use of alternative sentences to prison, such as community service, to relieve penitentiary establishments.
It also calls for the establishment “internal control, within the penitentiary administration”respect for ethics on the part of its agents. Using full searches, judged ” massive “should remain in particular “exceptional”estimates the press release, which denounces a practice “humiliating and degrading”.
To help prisoners “to better understand your rights and have them respected”The defender publishes a collection of explanatory cards, which will be available in the libraries of penitentiary establishments. Writing “in clear and accessible language”contains in particular advice for prisoners tried “the most vulnerable”especially older people or foreigners.
The chronic overcrowding of its prisons led to France’s condemnation by the European Court of Human Rights in 2020 and paved the way for a new appeal before the judicial judge for prisoners who consider their detention conditions unworthy.
