They stayed together. On Saturday, September 28, as they finished their afternoon walk, nearly one hundred and fifty inmates at the Nîmes preventive detention center refused to return to their cells. For several hours, the prisoners led a protest movement to denounce the current conditions of detention: overcrowding, deplorable hygiene, bedbug infestation… The arrival of regional intervention and security teams from Toulouse and Marseille was necessary to restore calm . In the early afternoon, the detainees returned to their cells. These types of demonstrations, initiated by prisoners, had not occurred since 2015 in this prison.
In Nimes, the prison facility, designed for 200 places, currently houses 486 inmates, according to the Justice union UFAP-UNSA, and has one of the highest prison overcrowding rates in the country. The situation applies to both the men’s and women’s neighborhoods. In most 9 m cells2Designed for two people, a mattress is added on the floor.
According to David Dehaye, delegate of the Justice union UFAP-UNSA in the Nimes prison, “Currently there are one hundred and two mattresses on the floor in the men’s section, that is, 267% of penal overcrowding, and 13 mattresses on the floor in the women’s section, that is, 270% of overcrowding.”. The weekend event is indicative of a “the situation is stagnating”believe. “We have been warning for months. It’s very tense. This overpopulation problem is not new in Nîmes. The building is old and dilapidated. All of this makes staff and inmates nervous. The situation is explosive. »
A non-isolated situation
On several occasions this summer, when temperatures exceeded 40°C, professionals took the initiative, starting with the lawyers of Nîmes, through the voice of the president of the Bar Association, Khadija Aoudia, to denounce “Inhuman and degrading treatment in the Nimes prison”declares the one who advocates “for a review of sanctions”. The Association of Lawyers for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights and the Human Rights League took legal action at the end of July to request “improvements in detention conditions”. But nothing has changed. The situation of Nimes, located in the Occitania region, does not seem isolated. “All the penitentiary establishments in our region are oversaturated, deplores Johann Reig, regional delegate of Justice of the UFAP-UNSA in Toulouse. There is a lack of softening towards other less busy prisons. It is incomprehensible that there is such a difference in occupancy rates. »
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