“Release at least 7,000 more detainees,” says prison controller

AFP, published on Monday 06 April 2020 at 7:49 p.m.

Government measures to unclog prisons to limit the risk of a spread of the covid-19 epidemic are “not up to the task” of the crisis, deplores prison authority Adeline on Monday Hazan.

Since their detention three weeks ago, French prisons have 6,266 fewer prisoners. Deeming this number “insufficient”, the general controller of places of deprivation and liberty (CGLPL) calls for the early releases of “at least 7,000 additional detainees” to avoid a health disaster.

QUESTION: You alerted Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet on March 17 of the “emergency” of a “massive” release of detainees. Do you feel that you have been heard?

ANSWER: There were 72,575 prisoners on March 16 for some 61,000 operational places, but in reality it is rather 55,000 places that are usable. This level of overcrowding has never been reached.

In prison houses, on January 1, there were 13,705 detainees in excess, who often share three of the 9 m2 cells.

It is therefore at least 13,000 detainees who must be released, or even 15 or 16,000. This is how we will be able to achieve the objective of individual confinement which, I remind you, has been imposed by law since 1875 and which is carried over from moratorium to moratorium, the last going until 2022.

This is the only way to limit the spread of the epidemic.

Even if they are going in the right direction, the measures taken by the Keeper of the Seals are insufficient, in addition to being late, because they only facilitate the early releases of detainees who are two months from the end of their sentence.

Q: What measures do you think are necessary?

A: From the beginning, we had to plan to release the detainees who are six months or less from their end of sentence.

This is not a random figure: the justice reform law, and its measures concerning sentences which entered into force on March 24, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, provides alternatives to incarceration for lower sentences or equal to six months, unless impossible.

That this same government did not choose this six-month threshold is incoherent. Once again on these subjects revolving around security, the government is afraid of reactions from public opinion or the opposition and therefore takes an action which stops in the middle of the ford.

The situation is exceptional, you have to have the courage to take exceptional measures. This is why I proposed individual graces to be multiplied, even an amnesty law. Just by releasing those who are less than six months from the end of their sentence, we would come close to 10,000 fewer detainees.

Q: How do prisoners experience this health situation?

A: We receive a lot of calls or letters from inmates who are very worried and afraid of the disease. The penal population is already extremely fragile, 70% suffers from at least one psychological or psychiatric disorder. And they feel once again forgotten by society.

In prison, barrier gestures are impossible to implement. Obviously, no prisoner has a mask, for the guards it is starting to happen but not enough.

Since the prisoners have not had visits to the visiting rooms for three weeks, I also ask that they be able to benefit from free telephone calls, as for television, or even that visiting rooms be organized by Skype.

But then again, the answers are not up to the seriousness of the situation. This crisis throws a glaring light on the situation of prisons in France.

–