The Keeper of the Seals Eric Dupond-Moretti launches an inspection mission on Friday to strengthen suicide prevention by prison and to clarify the circumstances in which a prisoner of Baumettes, former teacher, committed suicide in early August, we learned from the Chancellery.
In 2019, 128 prisoners committed suicide, three fewer than in 2018, according to the management of the prison administration (DAP). Between the 1is January and August 17, 82 suicides have already been recorded, against 72 over the same period last year.
Identify the risks
Among them is a 51-year-old former math teacher, who hanged himself on August 2 in his cell at Baumettes in Marseille. He had been in pre-trial detention for a month. His trial was postponed for the second time on July 28, because his psychiatric examination had still not been carried out. “My client could not bear to go back to prison”, according to his lawyer Louise Lanata.
The 50-year-old, suffering from depression, was accused of having punctured his physiotherapist’s tires seven times between May and June.
The inspection, carried out by the Minister of Justice, will have to understand how this suicide could have taken place when the authorities had been alerted to the risk. This will include seeing if the legal actors, prisons and caregivers have implemented all the tools at their disposal, according to the Chancellery. Éric Dupond-Moretti will receive the father of the detainee on Friday afternoon.
A report submitted by 1is September
Beyond this case, the mission will have to take stock of the progress of the 2019-2022 government plan on the health of prisoners, which already aims to strengthen suicide prevention actions. The inspection will have to make recommendations.
The report of the joint mission of the General Inspectorate of Justice and the General Health Inspectorate must be submitted to the Minister of Justice and to the Minister of Health Olivier Véran by 1is December, said the Chancellery.
Already in 2009, the prison administration adopted a prevention plan, comprising twenty measures. Among them: the system of support co-prisoners, which provides that a voluntary detainee, having undergone training, is placed in a cell with a prisoner whose action is feared.
According to the International Prison Observatory (OIP), prisoners commit suicide six times more than the general population.
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