A cell of nine square meters overcrowded with the personal belongings of three inmates, dirty and rusty collective showers, an artisanal stove placed on cans of soda, a kitchen whose sections of walls are falling to shreds… Via a series of photographs published this Friday, December 16, the Controller General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL) illustrates the dilapidation of the penitentiary center of Bois d’Arcy, in the Yvelines.
Following a visit carried out last September, Dominique Simonnot considers that the conditions of detention of this establishment, inaugurated in 1980, are “unworthy”, and do not make it possible to guarantee “neither the safety of the people imprisoned, nor that of the people who work in the penitentiary centre”. In a list of recommendations published urgently in the Official Journal, the CGLPL thus issued a rare request: it wants incarceration within the prison to be suspended, “until a general inspection of justice confirms that the security of the detainees is ensured” and that the working conditions of the supervisors allow them “to carry out all of their missions”.
On the first day of its control, the remand center had 833 prisoners, for 522 cells – an occupancy rate of 165%. According to the CGLPL’s count, 466 prisoners were thus housed “in pairs” in cells supposed to be individual, and 201 people “in threes”. “After removal of the footprint of the furniture, the personal space is 2.92 square meters in the single cells housing two prisoners, and 1.4 square meters in those housing three prisoners” laments the Controller. Rigorously, she lists the problems encountered during her visit: an electrical system that does not allow the cells to be equipped with a refrigerator or hot plates, devices for “heating DIY using cans, tubes of tomato sauce and handkerchiefs soaked in oil which are set on fire”, broken tiles and mold observed in the kitchen or even an unventilated garbage room “source of pestilential odors”, which compromises “the health safety of prisoners”.
To these degraded accommodation conditions is added the “idleness of the prison population”. While the job offer only benefits 220 prisoners, most of the other prisoners would spend “most of the day in the cell”, ignoring “almost all” of the offers of activity, for lack of being any. informed. Organizational difficulties in the establishment also lead to a reduction in the length of visiting rooms to thirty minutes, and hinder access to care. “The absence of supervisors slows down, even paralyzes the organization of movements, and up to 40% of medical appointments are not honored”, denounces Dominique Simonnot, who adds that many passageways are empty of supervisors for several hours a day. day, “which entails a serious risk to the safety of the detainees, left to fend for themselves”. “This deficiency is the result of a combination of factors, including a situation of understaffing, notable absenteeism and a large number of bonus holidays. This understaffing is aggravated by significant organizational shortcomings”, underlines- she.
“I’m not doing my job properly”
Conditions described as “detrimental to the dignity and rights of detainees”, which do not surprise the International Observatory of Prisons. In one year, the organization indicates to L’Express to have received 22 reports from prisoners, worried about the prison overcrowding within the establishment and their daily life in detention. In October 2021, one of them, for example, reports “poorly closed windows” in a cell of three people, resulting in “a Siberian cold”. Others are sorry to have “only one stool per cell for three people”, or “two tables” for 80 people on a walk, a space of “50 centimeters between the beds”, the possibility of showering only “three times a week”, or holes in unrepaired windows. “It is not possible to lock up detainees without respecting their human dignity. The question to be asked now is: how to enforce this right?” breathes Pauline Petiot, investigator at the OIP.
“We do what we can, but the guards are absolutely exhausted,” explains Haroun Halifa, prison guard and local secretary of the establishment’s Unsa/Ufap Justice union. Since 2017, the man has continued to see the cells fill up, without the number of supervisors increasing sufficiently. “Suddenly, the detainees are only allowed to shower every other day, can barely move around their cells… Frankly, I can sometimes understand their frustration,” he comments.
Every day, the guard and his colleagues would however accept “half-hours, even hours” of additional work to complete their missions. “Sometimes we don’t even have time to go to the toilet. With 60 inmates per floor for one guard, we can’t respond to all the requests. I’m not doing my job properly”. Result ? The tension can sometimes rise very high. And some inmates explode. “A colleague recently had part of his eye gouged out after being punched by an inmate. We can’t be calm, things have to change,” breathes Haroun Halifa.
In response to the recommendations of the CGLPL, previously sent to the Ministry of Justice, Eric Dupond-Moretti evokes for his part a “worrying” situation. In a letter dated November 30, addressed directly to Dominique Simonnot and published in the Official Journal, he assures that “letters are regularly written by the interregional director [des services pénitentiaires] to the attention of the Paris Court of Appeal and that of Versailles”, to “highlight” the prison overcrowding in Bois d’Arcy. “A new letter will soon be sent on this subject”, specifies the Minister. End of November , the number of detainees in France had reached a new absolute record, with 72,809 detainees for 60,698 operational places – a prison density of 120%.