Prisons: Eric Dupond-Moretti and Roselyne Bachelot launch the "Goncourt of prisoners"

Europe 1 with AFP 10 p.m., March 14, 2022

A "Goncourt detainees", a new literary prize, was launched on Monday by the Ministers of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, and Justice, Éric Dupond-Moretti, at the Aix-Luynes remand center, in the Bouches. -du-Rhone.

"The fifteen works selected by the Goncourt Academy will be proposed for deliberation and votes by people detained in 30 prison establishments who have applied. On December 15, the winner will be announced", explained Roselyne Bachelot.

"This initiative brings together two worlds wrongly considered as distant, that of literary creation and that of the prison universe", welcomed the minister, recalling "the intimate link" between certain "masterpieces of the literature and the drama of detention".

She cited in particular the writer Jean Genet, imprisoned among other things for having stolen books.

"It is an ambitious project" which "aims to make prisoners interested in literature" to better "reintegrate them into the social body", added for his part the Keeper of the Seals.

"The Goncourt Academy is delighted to be able to join this project, modeled on the Goncourt des Lycéens which has existed since 1988", welcomed its secretary general, Philippe Claudel.

Promoting culture in prison

The National Book Center told AFP that it would finance "the purchase of books" and "will also ensure their delivery" to detention centers.

Detainees are among the audiences targeted by this public establishment, which had financed 20 "project leaders" in favor of reading in 2021.

During their trip to Luynes, Roselyne Bachelot and Eric Dupond-Moretti also signed a new protocol to promote culture in prison.

The first was signed in 1986 by Robert Badinter and Jack Lang, and the last dated back to 2009. "The new protocol reaffirms the desire to offer prisoners real cultural programming, with the possibility of taking part and express artistically", explained Roselyne Bachelot.

"It strives to promote the cultural offer for minors, reaffirms the importance of cultural training for prison staff, workers and detainees," she added.

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"It also poses the desire to forge closer links between the inside and the outside and inscribes the need to equip all penitentiary establishments with spaces adapted to cultural practices: places for the dissemination of films, shows...", she detailed.

"A survey co-financed by the Ministries of Culture and Justice will make it possible to draw up an inventory of the existing cultural spaces" in prison and "to formalize recommendations", specified the Minister.

"Culture is a vector of personal revaluation, of school, professional and social integration. It can be considered as an element that gives meaning to the sentence with a view to preventing recidivism", estimated Éric Dupond for his part. -Moretti.

For the Keeper of the Seals, "participation in cultural activities in prison, involvement in particular in reading and writing" can, with good behavior in detention, also promote reductions in sentences.