French prisons again have more than 70,000 prisoners

Europe 1 with AFP 07:26, April 01, 2022

With 70,246 people incarcerated on March 1, French prisons are returning to a level of overcrowding that they had not reached for two years, at the start of a health crisis which had caused a drastic drop in the number of prisoners.

The situation had then given rise to "mad hope".

After two months of confinement in the spring of 2020, thanks to a drop in delinquency and early release measures, the average prison occupancy rate had fallen below the 100% threshold, with less than 60,000 prisoners.

Bad pupil of Europe

A first in 20 years in a country which is a bad student in Europe and which is regularly called to order for its chronic prison overcrowding.

By giving the keys to the Chancellery to his successor Éric Dupond-Moretti, in the summer of 2020, the former Keeper of the Seals Nicole Belloubet had invited him to seize this "historic chance".

But the confinement effect quickly evaporated and the hopes of definitively reducing this endemic overpopulation will only have been short-lived.

Since the fall of 2020, with the full resumption of post-lockdown judicial activity, the prison population has continued to increase, month after month inexorably approaching the threshold of 70,000 people incarcerated.

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This bar has been grazed several times.

It was crossed again on March 1, according to statistical data from the Ministry of Justice published Thursday evening.

French prisons had 70,246 prisoners at the beginning of the month for 60,619 operational places, i.e. an overall prison density of 115.9%.

It was 105.9% on March 1, 2021. Over one year, there were 5,841 more prisoners, representing a growth of 9.1% in the prison population.

"Prison regulation"

It is in remand centers, where prisoners awaiting trial – and therefore presumed innocent – ​​and those sentenced to short sentences are imprisoned, that this increase is the strongest.

In these establishments, the prison density was 96.9% on July 1, 2020. It increased to 114.6% three months later, then reached 124% on March 1, 2021. It now stands at 137.7%.

Forty-six of the 188 French prisons have a density greater than 150%.

It even reaches or exceeds 200% in six establishments (Bordeaux-Gradignan, Rochefort, Fontenay-le-Comte, La Roche-sur-Yon, Perpignan and Nîmes).

Because of this overcrowding, 1,665 prisoners in France are forced to sleep on mattresses placed on the floor.

They were 848 on March 1, 2021. And nearly 40,000 detainees are incarcerated in a structure more than 120% full.

This increase comes despite a reform that came into force in March 2020, in full confinement, which prohibits very short prison sentences and provides alternatives to incarceration for those under six months.

Judges do not seize it?

Even prohibited, very short sentences continue to be pronounced and the reference sentence remains imprisonment.

17 organizations summon Macron to act

In one year, the number of convicts placed at home under electronic bracelets increased from 13,219 to 14,080 on March 1, 2022. Placements outside, sentence adjustment measures also known to promote reintegration and fight against recidivism , remain very rare.

In June 2021, 17 organizations had called on Emmanuel Macron to act and demanded the implementation of a "voluntary policy of prison deflation".

Going through a "prison regulation device", enshrined in law and also demanded for a long time by the prison controller.

In a column published in early February in the daily

, Dominique Simonnot again alerted to the conditions of detention in France and invited magistrates and parliamentarians to visit prisons to look them "in the face" and confront the "consequences of (their) decisions".