Overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and cockroaches: the International Prison Observatory and the Bordeaux Bar Association are calling on the State to put an end to the “unworthy” conditions of detention in the Gradignan penitentiary center.

Their request, filed for an injunction to work and dignified reception for detainees in the penitentiary center with the Syndicate of Lawyers of France and an association for the defense of detainees (A3D), will be examined on Thursday, October 6 at 3:30 p.m., by the judge of referred to the administrative court of Bordeaux, they announced on Monday in a press release. 

"Housing of human beings should be prohibited there"

“We ask that the prison administration be ordered to implement urgent measures to receive prisoners with dignity”, specifies the order of lawyers in the same press release.

In mid-July, the Controller General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty (CGLPL), Dominique Simonnot, had denounced “inhuman” conditions of detention in Gradignan, in particular at the men's remand center.

“Housing human beings should be prohibited there,” she wrote in a damning report, describing “leprous” walls, dilapidated beds, great dirt and a living space reduced to three square meters.

"There are a lot of cockroaches here, it's cold too," testified on Monday Frédéric, an inmate, during a visit by the rapporteur for the prison administration budget, the Renaissance deputy for the 6th district of Gironde, Éric Poulliat. .

"I don't run a hotel, so we fill"

At the beginning of October, the prison of Gradignan had 794 prisoners for 305 places, that is to say a “overcrowding of 217% in the sector of the men”, according to its director Dominique Bruneau who describes an establishment “undersized” faced with the influx of prisoners.

At the end of May, the establishment was the most populated in France with an occupancy rate of 240%, and 150 mattresses on the floor.

"You can't put a sign on the door saying 'it's full'.

I don't run a hotel, so we fill in, ”laments the manager.

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