The Comptroller General of places of deprivation of liberty, Dominique Simonnot, presented her annual report on Thursday. The information it contains “has been cross-checked as said in journalism, and objectified as they say in the administration”, explained during the press conference, the former judicial columnist of the chained duck, who took over as head of this administrative authority in the fall of 2020. In this 188-page document, based on visits carried out by five teams in 2022, she denounces “a general abandonment of places of confinement which concerns both the personal than people deprived of their freedoms”. Overcrowded prison, hygiene problem, violence… 20 Minutes takes stock of what to remember.
Record prison overcrowding
73,080 detainees for 60,899 places. A new historical peak was reached in French prisons in April. In remand prisons, the average occupancy rate climbs to 142.2%. Detainees often have to live “three to a cell, 21 hours a day with less than 1 m2 of living space per person”. “When I entered a cell, the inmates told me not to sit down and showed me their arms devoured by bedbug bites. Looking out the window, we see rats, stray cats, it stinks everywhere, ”says the former legal columnist.
Even beyond living conditions, this overcrowding complicates “access to training, access to healthcare, access to education, to work… there are too many people”. It is “a source of violence and tension”.
She reprimands the “solution put forward by the State” to fight against prison overcrowding: the construction of 15,000 new prison places by 2027. “It’s a promise already made by I don’t know how many Presidents of the Republic” , she notes. Lutterbach prison, for example, opened its doors in December 2021… and is “already 190% full”. “So this is proof that the more you build, the more you fill. »
The unsanitary conditions of custody premises
In 2022, the CGLPL visited 44 police custody premises. In her report, she denounces “the lack of hygiene” in the cells, even in the most recent police stations. “You have to have a strong heart to sit in a cell, shared by several people, without toilets, or with the flush that does not work”, she describes. We find there, often in insufficient numbers, “mattresses which are not disinfected between two detainees, filthy blankets which are used by several”.
In her report, she is also concerned about the almost systematic removal of glasses and bras from detainees, which places, she writes, “the person heard in a humiliating situation which weighs on his ability to defend himself”. She also notes that access to the doctor “is more or less easy depending on the territories visited”. Another point of concern: video surveillance, the use of which is spreading, “sometimes without precaution”. It is therefore not uncommon for toilets to be in the field of the cameras”.
Closed educational centers with highly variable methods
In 2022, CGLPL teams visited three closed educational centers (CEF). “It’s the last step before prisons,” summarizes Dominique Simonnot. “We visit a lot. Some are extraordinary, with long-term teams that really supervise the kids, where you learn trades. We can see that things are going well. But in others, we found kids abandoned, smoking weed in their room while playing the PlayStation, ”she says. She recounts, during this press conference, having discovered that two people, who worked in a closed nightclub at the time of the health crisis, were hired as educators in a CEF. “As soon as a kid did something stupid, he received a potato. »
In her report, she lists the problems observed in these centres: “Lack of trained personnel, violence, racketeering, drugs, neglect. Some come to close. Then to reopen, then to close again. “And the former journalist to conclude:” Before creating other CEFs, perhaps it would be better to think about it? It is obvious to say that children are our future. How is it possible to abandon them in this way? »
The promiscuity of administrative detention centers
In 2022, the CGLPL visited four administrative detention centers (CRA), where foreigners in the process of being deported are placed. There too, she denounces in her report the lack of maintenance and hygiene of the premises. “There are fights, brawls… The police do not intervene because they are afraid. The conditions of confinement are appalling. At night the doors don’t close, so people hang out sheets that they try to hang with toothpaste. The Court of Auditors, she said, assessed the amount of detention of a person at 690 euros per day. However, the detainees, who “live in anguish”, “complain of being hungry”, and “there is nothing to distract them”.
The detention “must last the time strictly necessary for the removal”, recalls Dominique Simonnot. “But there are very few deportations because the countries of origin do not take back their nationals. It is a difficult exercise in diplomacy.