Anatomy of a quack. The report from the management of the prison administration on the video of the “Kohlanness” team at Fresnes prison, filmed on July 27, which L’Express was able to consult, recounts in detail how the sporting event could have been authorized and filmed, contrary to what part of the senior administration, who were poorly informed about the event, would have wished. The document is overwhelming for the management of the establishment, which recognizes an “error of assessment”, and is now exposed to possible sanctions. Implicitly, differences in sensitivity appear on the meaning of the sentence, which were affirmed in the public positions taken throughout the controversy. “The fight against recidivism goes through reintegration but certainly not through karting!” Thundered Éric Dupond-Moretti on August 20, a few hours after the images were broadcast by the Konbini media. The minister will take out a circular in the coming days “to clearly set the conditions necessary for carrying out reintegration projects in prison”, he announced on Tuesday, August 23.
The report, dated this same August 23 and signed by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice and the Deputy Director of the Prison Administration, traces the thread of the organization of the event. It all started “at the end of June”, when the local education manager in Fresnes presented the project to her management, in the company of Djibril Dramé, president of Unitess, the administrative name of “Kohlanness”. Idea validated in principle by the director, provided that the day costs nothing to the taxpayer and “carries the values of solidarity, cohesion and surpassing oneself”. The modalities of the tests, “in particular the karting and water basin test”, were known from the start. It is specified that the working meetings were then held in July under the leadership of the deputy director, the latter being “on annual leave”.
“Late and partial knowledge”
It emerged from the hearings that although many protagonists, including the minister’s office, were made aware of the operation upstream, its exact terms were not detailed. “If authorization in principle from the Chancellery has been given with regard to this action and its media coverage, it is without knowing the precise details, in particular with regard to the karting event and the water basin. “, underline the authors of the report. The assistant to the director of Fresnes waits until July 20, a week before the event, to contact “by telephone” the communication officer of the interregional directorate of penitentiary services (DISP) in Paris. An email is sent the next day, so the director of the prison services of Paris evokes today “a late and partial knowledge” of the demonstration. As for the communication department of the Ministry of Justice, it was informed on July 22 by the DISP of the principle of hosting the Konbini media but not of the advisability of the project “unlike the usual when it comes to initiatives integrating from the start a “national media coverage” dimension”, argues the chancellery in the report.
On July 25, the minister’s office validated the presence of Konbini subject to the authorization of the management of the prison administration and without knowing the precise content of the tests. “If we had known, we would never have authorized karting. These images are shocking because they sweep away the socio-cultural work of reintegration that is being done”, explains the chancellery today to the Express. At that time, the management of the establishment brought up the idea of a “relay race” and not of an expensive motor sport, the practice of which in prison can shock, further argues the chancellery.
According to the report, the only dissenting voice was that of the interregional director of penitentiary services, who expressed his “disapproval” on July 25, because of the “late” nature of the information and the concept which he considers “inappropriate”. , which he describes as “that of associating the penitentiary center of Fresnes with a game of survival in a hostile environment”. Four officials from the Ministry of Justice are on the scene on July 27 and discover the content of the tests live.
“Cuts and blurring are done”
The document also emphasizes that on August 4, a “feedback” took place, in the presence of the DISP and the management of the establishment. During this meeting, “several scenes that may appear to be inappropriate or susceptible to negative interpretation were removed” from the video of Kohlanness, at the request of the DISP. Subsequent deletions are then requested by the ministry. Same phenomenon on August 9 with Konbini: “Cuts and blurring are carried out” at the request of the DISP and the ministry. Not enough to put out the looming fire: on August 18, the day before the broadcast, the ministry’s communication department warned the minister’s office “of the risk of controversy that these broadcasts could cause”. Note that the holding of a karting race was mentioned on July 28 in a report by Parisianwhich apparently did not attract attention.
The chancellery does not share, however, the analysis of Kohlanness concerning the profile of the detainees, even if it recognizes the facts. The associative team deleted its video from social networks on Monday August 22 after learning that one of the participants in the video was convicted of rape in 2021, when it would have been agreed with the establishment that no convicted prisoner for an “attack on the physical and/or moral integrity of a victim” would not participate. “The trust we placed in the Fresnes penitentiary center as well as in the Ministry of Justice has been broken,” the Unitess team said in a statement. In the report, it is specified that the “detainee L.” was indeed “convicted for acts of repeated rape” and is free in 2031. His “candidacy was validated” because “his behavior in detention has improved significantly over the past eighteen months”.
“Disciplinary Incidents”
In all, eleven detainees were selected to participate in the tests, on the basis of their “investment” in detention and “the positive evolution of their behavior”, despite, for four of them, “reports disciplinary incident in 2022”. Sixteen prisoners were also spectators of the ordeals, all imprisoned for acts of a correctional nature, except “detainee K., sentenced for acts of assassination”. However, this choice is not considered as a fault of the establishment of Fresnes by the senior officials of the ministry. “All of the inmates selected, corresponding to the profiles of a remand center, having been assessed by the teams, correspond to a completely classic modus operandi when it comes to a socio-economic activity. cultural or sports organized in detention”, write the rapporteurs. A member of the prison administration explains to L’Express: “All detainees may be entitled to socio-cultural activities in detention, there is no exclusion in principle because of the reason for conviction”.
By saying yes to activities in prison but no to karting, Eric Dupond-Morettia feeds a passionate debate on the meaning of the sentence. On the one hand, those who believe that prisoners are not meant to engage in leisure activities, such as Eric Ciotti. “Our prisons are not summer camps where inmates and guards form friendships. Where is the respect for the victims and their families who see these offenders enjoying themselves while serving their sentences? Where is the afraid of the sanction?”, underlined the deputy LR of the Alpes-Maritimes on Twitter. On the other hand, those who argue that prison should promote moral reform and the reintegration of convicts, in order to prevent recidivism. Sociologist Dominique Bodin, a specialist in reintegration through sport in prison, is of this opinion: “I have carried out numerous studies, with the approval of prison directors, for example in Rennes, where prisoners were introduced to volleyball -ball. It is not the sport in itself that is good, but what the supervisor-instructor manages to create, such as a process of respect for the rules or respect between inmates”. The academic adds that socio-cultural activities also have the virtue of releasing the prisoner from “idleness” which can promote “deviant behavior”.
Tocqueville and Foucault
In their report of August 23, the senior officials of the Ministry of Justice detail the criteria which must justify a socio-cultural activity in prison: “It is not the offer of ‘leisure’ or the ‘occupational’ purpose which is targeted, but the acquisition of psycho-social skills and the construction, by all the levers that can be mobilized, of exit projects and therefore of a return to life in society”. Which was not the case, in the eyes of the chancellery, concerning the karting race.
This debate between the different functions of the prison was already detailed in On the prison system in the United States and its application in France, a report written by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1833. The essayist, then magistrate, commissioned by the government to study American detention centers, distinguishes the “Auburnian” model, developed in the prisons of Auburn (State of New York) from “Pennsylvania” model, in vogue in the eponymous state. In Auburn, the supervisors emphasize a “training” of the individual, in particular by relearning life in society. In Pennsylvania, on the contrary, it is a question of isolating the prisoner as much as possible, whose name is replaced by a number. Traumatized, the convict is supposed to come out of it transformed on leaving prison. It is this authoritarian model that sociologist Michel Foucault, an observer of French prisons, will describe in Keep an eye on and punishin 1975. A critical work that will give rise, from the 1980s and the arrival of the left to power, to numerous reforms in order to facilitate the reintegration of prisoners, notes Dominique Bodin.
French stiffening
In this equation, political leaders still have to arbitrate, today, with the increasingly pressing gaze of public opinion. A study carried out in March 2018 by Ifop for the Jean-Jaurès foundation had highlighted a spectacular stiffening of the French on these questions. Whereas 72% of them thought that the prison must above all prepare the reintegration of prisoners into society in January 2000, they were only 45% eighteen years later. Conversely, the total of those who believe that prison should above all deprive prisoners of their liberty rose from 21% to 49%. Similarly, respondents, who were 79% in 2000 to consider that outside contributors – teachers, artists – should have wider access to prison, were only 53% in 2018. Above all, 50% of respondents thought that prisoners are “too well treated” in French prisons, compared to 18% in 2000, – even though respondents claimed to be well informed about the deplorable state of detention centres. A process perhaps not totally unrelated to the controversy over Fresnes karting.