The official watchdog for the maintenance of the fundamental human rights of people in detention in France presented its latest yearly report on Wednesday. The 326-page document is a compilation of its investigations and findings for the year 2011, in which it notably denounced increasing prison overcrowding, the practice of humiliating body searches and an emphasis on security rather than reinsertion.
The independent body is led by Jean-Marie Delarue, France’s General Inspector of Places of Deprivation of Liberty, (Contrôleur général des lieux de privation de liberté ), or CGLPL, who oversees a 30-strong team of inspectors, composed of magistrates, police officers, prison officials, doctors and high-ranking civil servants, who monitor the conditions of inmates in prisons, detention centres and psychiatric hospitals, and also those held in police custody.
According to official government figures, there were 65,699 people imprisoned in France in February, representing a 114% occupation of prison accommodation, and a year-on-year rise of 6.4%. Of that total, 16, 463 people behind bars are in preventive detention, awaiting trial.
The report was concerned that only 27.7% of prisoners are involved in paid labour. “The exercising of a paid activity is primordial for people in detention,” it said. “ It allows them to meet their needs, it facilitates the compensation of civil parties, it begins the process of reinsertion and, for civil society, contributes to the avoidance of reoffending.”
The report described the systematic practice of body and cell searches in prisons as a “needless humiliation”, adding “it is above all an admission of weakness on the part of the penitentiary authorities regarding the rule of public order in their establishments.”
Since his appointment in June 2008, Delarue’s team has carried out 506 detailed inspections, most lasting several days, including 164 of police interview rooms, 125 of penitentiary establishments, 84 of psychiatric hospitals and secure hospital wings, 61 of administrative detention centres, 27 of juvenile detention centres and 15 customs services’ detention blocks.
“It gives you a certain familiarity with these enclosed places,” Delarue told Mediapart in an interview coinciding with the publication of the 2011 report. “It’s necessary to accomplish our mission of reporting what goes on in them. We do it with greater ease than the people who are detained, or even the staff, who also tell us of their difficulties.”
Indeed, the report underlines the lack of field support that prison staff, nurses and youth educators are offered in managing their daily problems, and who are limited to filing reports to their hierarchy. The CGLPL report proposes that this should be remedied by the creation of posts of supervisors who would encourage “confidential” discussions “in the framework of an equal relationship” about difficulties staff encounter.
Prisoners held in 'cages'
During their visits, the inspectors note everything that could constitute a breach of respect of an individual’s personal dignity, at whatever level, ranging from insalubrious conditions of detention to the lack of transport facilities for family visits, and including arbitrary restrictions or punishments, and maltreatment.
The problems identified by the inspectors are the result of government policies, such as prison overcrowding or insufficient numbers of medical staff, institutional practices, including regular prisoner body-searches conducted in humiliating conditions, or the removal of bras or spectacles of suspects under interrogation, or simple professional disinterest, such as the non-maintenance of toilets in police questioning blocks.
In some cases, the findings of the inspectors have resulted in a swift and postive response by the authorities. During a visit in early 2011 to an open prison they visited in Corbeil-Essonnes, just south of Paris, they found a dormitory for three people without any ventilation, its saltpeter walls covered in humidity and fungus, where the toilets were no longer functioning and where the electrical wiring was potentially dangerous. The dormitory was closed by the prison’s management that same day.
On another occasion in 2011, during a visit of the prison of Troyes, the inspectors were appalled to find four enclosed blocks with bars set out as holding zones for prisoners, who were kept inside them for several hours during the day, and which they described as “cages”. They were closed swiftly after prison authorities were notified of the inspectors’ conclusions.
Prisoners threatened after inspectors' visits
However, there were also a number of incidences where problems were left unresolved, either because of insufficient resources or a lack of interest. This was the case in the major Fresnes prison, close to Paris, where the inspectors found there were no toilettes or urinals in the exercise yard, from which prisoners are not allowed to re-enter the prison building during exercise. Instead, they carry plastic bottles to relieve themselves in, often throwing them afterwards over the walls where they occasionally land on volunteers distributing clothes to the neediest inmates.
Other, less graphic, problems include the practice of the right of prisoners to make phone calls. “Telephones are set up in the exercise yards, where the toughest rule, or along the gangways, where everyone can hear the details of conversations,” Delarue said. “What’s more, the numbers called must be given to the [prison] authorities beforehand, along with an authorisation paper and a [phone] bill of the person to be called, which creates a series of complications, notably with regard to phoning abroad or to a social services centre.”
Another area of concern was the right to religious practice by prisoners and detained suspects. “Although authorized, minority religions, [like] Buddhists and Jehovah witnesses, meet with many more difficulties in succeeding in having their chaplains officially recognised by the administration,” Delarue said.
“Globally, the welcome given [us] by the staff of prisons and in psychiatric hospitals is quite good,” noted Delarue. This was despite the fact that some visits by inspectors have resulted in criminal investigations brought against prison warders. Indeed, he underlined his concern over a number of serious incidents of victimization of prisoners who spoke up about their grievances before the inspectors. “We are preoccupied by the threats, acts of retaliation or harassment that, after our passage, some detained people are victims of,” Delarue warned. “There is a real danger that people become afraid and no longer talk to us. If detained people, or indeed staff, are prevented from talking to us, the institution is in danger of being killed off. And it is an attack on the fundamental right to free speech.”
While everyone in detention in France is allowed to write to Delarue’s office in total confidentiality, just as they are regarding sending letters to their legal counsel, some of the written correspondence arrives in opened envelopes. “Prison governors tell us that these are cases of inattention, but I have difficulty in believing that,” commented Delarue. His office received 3,800 letters of complaints in 2011, a 30% rise on 2010.
Other issues of concern underlined by the report concerned the little attention given to the recognition of detainee’s social rights and the lack of access for detainees to consult their personal data files.
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English version: Graham Tearse