Prison overcrowding, a French scourge

Prison overcrowding a French scourge

Last Wednesday, a young prisoner died in the fire of his cell at the Bordeaux Gradignan penitentiary center, the most overloaded in France. The occupancy rate is 225%, that is to say, in this prison, there are more than two prisoners for each place provided. According to official figures, the occupancy rate of French prisons reached 117% on May 1. This figure rises to almost 139% in remand centers, where people awaiting trial and those who have received short sentences are detained.

This vice-everything prison overcrowding denounces the general controller of places of deprivation of liberty who has just submitted her annual report: relations between prisoners, working conditions of supervisors, access to care, work, training or even showers or walks are complicated or even prevented by the excessive number of prisoners.

This evil is not new. More than twenty years ago, French parliamentarians visited penitentiary establishments and entitled their report “Prisons, a humiliation for the republic”. But the problem persisted, it even got worse. And France continues to be regularly condemned by the European Court of Human Rights for the way it treats its detainees.

Today Décryptage looks at the dramatic situation of French prisons.

With :

André FerragneSecretary General of places of deprivation of liberty

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