There are more and more people behind bars in France.

The number of inmates in prisons rose again in June, to 67,971 inmates on July 1, against 58,695 a year earlier, an increase of 15.7%, according to statistics from the Ministry of Justice.

As of June 1, there were 66,591 prisoners and 65,384 on May 1.

As in previous months, nearly 30% of those imprisoned (19,221) are defendants detained pending trial.

The number of imprisoned minors is down very slightly (-0.5%), with 771 on July 1 against 779 a month ago.

They represent around 1% of the total prison population.

The proportion of female prisoners (3.3%) also remains stable.

Mattresses on the floor

But the big problem remains the overcrowding in the prisons.

The number of operational places is in fact 60,398.

The prison density in the 188 penitentiary establishments therefore now stands at 112.5%, against 109.5% on June 1 and 108% on May 1.

As of July 1, 1,138 detainees were forced to sleep on a mattress placed on the floor, one of the instruments for measuring prison overcrowding.

They were 431 a year ago.

This density is also 132.2% in remand centers, where prisoners awaiting trial and those sentenced to short sentences are incarcerated, an increase of more than 20 points compared to July 1, 2020. It reached even 198.5% at the Tarbes remand center.

France condemned

Prison overcrowding is regularly singled out.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France in January 2020 for its chronic overcrowding and ordered it to resolve it definitively.

In the spring of 2020, thanks to the health crisis, the number of inmates had dropped drastically (-13,000), and the average prison occupancy rate had fallen for the first time in twenty years below the 100% threshold.

But since the resumption of judicial activity in September, the prison population has continued to climb.

Faced with this outbreak, several organizations sounded the alarm again in early June and urged Emmanuel Macron to act to "put an end" to this overpopulation.

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With 66,591 inmates on June 1, the increase in the prison population continues

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