They are more than 600 to demand, in an open letter to the Prime Minister this Wednesday, the establishment of Internet access in French prisons, to facilitate the reintegration of prisoners and reduce the "digital divide".
Among them, leaders of associations and integration structures, probation advisers, lawyers, magistrates and several deputies including Ségolène Amiot (LFI), Ugo Bernalicis (LFI) and Arthur Delaporte (PS).
"If the ban on Internet access in prison is not laid down by any law, it is nevertheless total", argue the signatories, who are calling for a public and legislative debate on the subject.
"Access to the Internet between walls is essential to recognize detainees as subjects of rights, limit the social exclusion caused by incarceration and facilitate the return to free life", say the signatories.
Consultation mainly by illegal means
Several countries have introduced controlled Internet access in cells, including Germany, Switzerland and the United States.
But in France, the Internet remains mainly consulted by detainees via cell phones illegally introduced into cells.
In 2020, the Comptroller General of places of deprivation of liberty at the time, Adeline Hazan, had estimated in a report that this access should be considered "priority".
She had considered this deprivation as a "hindering" of many fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, the right to education as well as "the right of a detained person to prepare for his return to society. ".
An experiment was launched in 2009 in some prisons before being abandoned.
The prison administration is nevertheless experimenting with a new project, called “Digital in Detention” (NED), an intranet allowing, for example, to place orders in the canteen or to manage visiting slots.
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