• Indicators for French prisons have been in the red for several decades.

    The number of detainees reached an unprecedented level of 72,836 in December.

  • Collective releases as in the period of Covid-19, giving credibility to alternative sentences, building more establishments... What are the ways to stem the phenomenon?

  • For

    20 Minutes,

    Benjamin Monnery, researcher in economics at the University of Paris-Nanterre specializing in criminal justice, and Dominique Simonnot, general controller of places of deprivation of liberty, try to provide some answers.

+4%, +120%, +200%.

If these numbers reflected the growth of a large company, one could say that they are excellent.

They depict a much less rosy reality, that of the increase in the number of prisoners in French prisons and, therefore, of the evil that has plagued them for decades: prison overcrowding.

In this case, successive Ministers of Justice had to familiarize themselves with the color red: establishment occupancy rate (+200% for six prisons), prison density (+120%), increase in the number of detainees in one year ( 4%), etc

The various indicators are at half mast and the reasons for hope in the short term are slim.

So how do we put an end to overcrowded prisons?

Answers with Benjamin Monnery, researcher in economics at the University of Paris-Nanterre, specialist in criminal justice,

How many prisoners are there in French prisons?

The figures published this Wednesday by the Ministry of Justice do not lead to optimism: with 72,836 detainees in December, France had never counted so many detainees… since November.

French prisons thus have 27 more prisoners than in November, the month during which prison overcrowding had exceeded the previous record recorded in March 2020, on the eve of confinement.

And over a year in December, there were 2,844 more prisoners, an increase of 4%.

The State faces a major problem: only 60,398 prison places are operational.

The overflow of prisoners compared to the number of available cells forces more than 2,000 prisoners to sleep on a mattress stored on the floor, without a box spring.

“The last episode without prison overcrowding in France dates from the beginning of the year 2000. It lasted a year, indicates Benjamin Monnery.

Since 2003-2004, there has been a sharp increase in the number of inmates in relation to the number of places.

»

Today, nearly half of French prisons accommodate more prisoners than their capacity, 56 establishments have a density greater than 150% and six have an occupancy rate of 200%.

What avenues have been explored to try to put an end to prison overcrowding?

To unclog the prisons, all the Ministers of Justice, or almost, went there with their ideas.

In 2016, under the presidency of François Hollande, Minister of Justice Jean-Jacques Urvoas wanted to create between 10,000 and 16,000 additional cells.

“Prison is a place where we exercise punishment, it is not worth it,” said the minister at the time.

Then Nicole Belloubet, under the first term of Emmanuel Macron, reformed the sentence adjustments by law.

“The idea is to avoid unnecessary, desocializing imprisonment that fuels recidivism,” she announced.

“These are

ab initio arrangements

.

In practice, sentence adjustment is almost mandatory for a sentence less than or equal to one year in prison, details Benjamin Monnery.

But only 20% of the sentences eligible for this system are actually adjusted”.

It should be noted that more than a quarter of detainees (26.4%) are defendants, that is to say people awaiting trial - and therefore presumed innocent.

The prison density in remand centers, where these defendants and those sentenced to short sentences are imprisoned, is 142.8%.

Finally, before the first confinement, in 2020, the government had issued orders allowing the release of more than 6,000 detainees under certain conditions.

A measure that had proven effective in relieving congestion in prisons.

"But it's a short-term solution, like at the time of presidential pardons when detainees were released each year in July", slice Benjamin Monnery.

So what are the other possible solutions?

For the criminal justice specialist interviewed by

20 Minutes

, two solutions could curb the problem of prisons full to bursting.

First, the creation of new places.

And it will soon be done since the government is planning 15,000 additional beds by 2027.

Then, according to our expert, it would be necessary to make more “credible” in the eyes of magistrates, convicts and society the sentences which make it possible to avoid incarceration.

In other words, community service, suspended probation, suspended probation, house arrest with a bracelet, for example.

“We have a very wide range of sentences in France.

We must put the means so that they can be executed and prevent recurrences, ”says Benjamin Monnery.

How ?

By investing in these alternatives, in the way of implementing them and in monitoring the prisoners who pay the price.

And the economist cites the Scandinavian countries and Germany which have experienced a massive drop in incarceration rates by taking this route.

For years the @CGLPL has been alerting the Government, Justice, Parliament to an increasingly frightening prison overcrowding, which sees prisoners, piled up like battery chickens, with less than 1m 2 of living space per human being .

— CGLPL (@CGLPL) December 28, 2022

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"The harsher the conditions of detention, the more it will generate recidivism", then decides Benjamin Monnery.

An observation identical to that of the Estates General of Justice, which indicated last July that prison overcrowding did not allow “to ensure quality reintegration, nor to prevent recidivism.

»

What penal system can France draw inspiration from?

For Danielle Simonnot, there is no doubt that the prison policies of Spain and Germany should be taken as an example.

“These countries have favored alternative sentences.

Germany has 14,000 prisoners less than us with 20 million more inhabitants than France.

Over there, when a prison reaches 90% occupancy, it declares itself overcrowded, no more prisoners come in,” comments the Comptroller General.

A Danielle Simonnot who pleads for the adoption of a similar system of prison regulation in France, enshrined in law.

our file on prisons

As for the Germans, they succeeded in two decades in eliminating prison overcrowding.

As of 30 June last, the use of the capacities of the penal system there was thus 78.1% whereas it was almost 104% in 2003. In Spain, the number of prisoners fell by more than 20% between 2011 and 2022.

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